A Book Of Quaker Saints

A. BQOl^

OF QUAiiER SAINTS

Br THE SAME AUTHOR.

PILGRIMS IN PALESTINE.

[Out of print."]

THE HAPPY WORLD.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO ‘THE
FELLOWSHIP OF SILENCE.*

SILENT WORSHIP: THE WAY
OF WONDER.

[S^arthmore Lecture^ *9^9-)

A BOOK OF

QUAKER SAINTS

BY

L. V. HODGKIN

(Mrs. JOHN HOLDSWORIH)

ILLUSTRATED BY

F. CAYLEY-ROBINSON, A.R.A.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STRB£T, LONDON

COPYRIGHT

First Edition 1917 Reprinted igi8

Transferred to Macmillan &* Co, and reprinted 1922

PRINTED^IN GREAT BRITAIN

DEDICATED

TO THE

CHILDREN
OF THE

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

AND TO THE
GRANDCHILDREN

OF

THOMAS HODGKIN

PREFACE

The following stories are intended for children of
various ages. The introductory chapter, ‘A Talk a-
bout Saints,* and the stories marked with an asterisk
in the Table of Contents, were written first for an
eager listener of nine years old. But as the book
has grown longer the age of its readers has grown
%lder for two reasons:

First\ because it was necessary to take for granted
some knowledge of the course of English History at
the period of the Civil Warr. To have re-told the story
of the contest between King and Parliament, leading
up to the execution of Charles the First and the Pro-
tectorate of Oliver Cromwell, would have taken up
much of the fresh, undivided attention that I was
anxious to focus upon the lives and doings of these
‘ Quaker Saints.* I have therefore presupposed a cer-
tain familiarity with the chief actors and parties, and
an understanding of such names as Cavalier, Round-
head, Presbyterian, Independent, etc.; but I have
tiled to explain any obsolete words, or those of which
the fiiejning has altered in the two and a half cen-
turies that have elapsed since the great struggle.

Secondly', because the stories of the persecutions
jSlfthe Early Friends are too harrowing for younger
^children. Even a very much softened and milder
version was met with the repeated request:. ‘Do,
please, skip this part and make it come happy quick-
ly.’ I have preferred, therefore, to write for older boys
and girls who will wish for a true account of suffering
bravely borne ; though without undue insistence on
the physica^^side. For to tell the stories of these lives
without the terrible, glorious account of the cruel beat-

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

ings, imprisonments, and even martyrdom in which
ihey often ended here, is not truly to tell them at
all. The tragic darkness in the picture is necessary
to enhance its high lights.

My youngest critic observes that ‘it does not mat-
ter so much what happens to grown-up people, be-
cause I can always skip that bit; but if anything bad
is going to happen to children, you had better ledv#
itoutof your book altogether.* Ihave therefore obed-
iently omitted the actual sufferings of children as far
as possible, except in one or two stories where they
are an essential part of the narrative.

It must be remembered that this is not a History
of the Early Quaker Movement, but a book of stories
of some Early Quaker Saints. I have based my ac-
count on contemporary authorities; but I have not
scrupled to supply unrecorded details or explanatory
speeches in order to make the scene more vivid to
my listeners. In two stories of George Fox’s youth,
as authentic records are scanty, Ihave even ventured
to look through the eyes of imaginary spectators «it
‘The Shepherd of Pendle Hill’ and ‘The ^ngel of
Beverley.’ But the deeper I have dug down into the
past, the less need there has been to fill in outlines;
and the more possible it has been to keep closel/ %o
the actual words of George Fox’s Journal, and other ^
contemporary documents. The historical notes at
the end of the book will indicate where the original
authorities for each story are to be found, and they
will show what liberties have been taken. The quot-
ations that precede the different chapters are intend-
ed mainly for older readers, and to illustrate either
the central thought or the history of the times,
viii

PREFACE

Many stories of other Quaker Saints that should
have been included in this book have had to be omit-
ted for want of room. The records of William Penp
and his companions md friends on both sides of the
Atlantic will, it is hoped^ eventually find a place in a
later volume. The stories in the present book have
been selected to show how the TriJlh of the Inward
Light first dawned gradually on one soul, and then
spread rapidly, in ever-widening circles, through a
neighbourhood, a kingdom, and, finally, all over the
world.

I have to thank many kind friends who have helped
me in this delightful task. The Book of Quaker Saints
owes its existence to my friend Ernest E. Taylor, who
first suggested the title and plan, and then, gently
but inexorably, persuaded me to write it. Several of
the stories and many of the descriptions are due to
his intimate knowledge of the lives and homes of the
Early Friends; he has, moreover, been my unfailing
adviser and helper at every stage of the work.

No one can study this period of Quaker history
withoulbeing constantly indebted to William Charles
Braithwalte, the author of Beginnings of Quakerism^
and to Norman Penney, the Librarian at Devon-
,^hire House, and Editor of the Cambridge Edition
of George Fox’s Journal with its invaluable not^s.
But beyond this I owe a personal debt of gratitude
to these two Friends, for much wise counsel as to
sources, for their kindness in reading my MS. and
my proofs, and for the many errors that their accurate
scholarship has helped me to avoid, or enabled me
to detect. »

To Ethel Crawshaw, Assistant at the same Library;

IX

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

to my sister, Ellen S. Bosanquet; and to several other
friendSwho have helped me invafiousways, mygrate-
ful thanks are also due.

The stories are intended <n the first place for
Quaker children, and are written throughout from a
Quaker standpoint, though with the wish to be as
fair as possible not only to our staunch forefathers,
but also to their doughty antagonists. Even when de-
scribing the fiercest encounters between them, I have
tried to write nothing that might perplex or pain other
than Quaker listeners ; above all, to be ever mindful
of what George Fox himself calls ‘the hidden unity
in the Eternal Being.’

L. V. HODGKIN.

29M July 1917.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

A TALK ABOUT SAINTS

*1. ‘STIFF AS A TREE, PURE AS
A BELL’

*11. ‘PURE FOY, MA JOYE’

*IIL THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY

*IV, TAMING THE TIGER

*V. ‘THE MAN IN LEATHER
BREECHES’

VI. THE SHEPHERD OF PENDLE
HILL

VIL THE PEOPLE IN WHITE
RAIMENT

VIII. A WONDERFUL FORTNIGHT

IX. UNDER THE YEW-TREES

X. ‘BEWITCHED!’

«

XL*THE JUDGE’S RETURN

*XII. ‘STRIKE AGAIN!’

*XIII. MAGNANIMITY

*XIV. MILES HALHEAD AND THE
HAUGHTY LADY

XV. SCATTERING THE SEED

XVI. WRESTLING FOR GOD

XVII. LITTLE JAMES AND HIS
* JOURNEYS

^age vii
\

19

33

57

79

97

1 1 1

121

131

149

163

175

185

197

209

223

239

255

xi

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

XVIJI. THE FIRST QUAKER

MARTYR 271

• *XIX. THE CHILDREN OF READ-
ING MEETINtf 28s

*XX. THE SADDEST STORY OF

ALL 301

♦XXL PALE WINDFLOWERS 321

XXII. AN UNDISTURBED MEET-
ING 343

XXIII. BUTTERFLIES IN THE

FELLS 3S3

XXIV. THE VICTORY OF AMOR

STODDART 367

♦XXV. THE MARVELLOUS VOYAGE
OF THE GOOD SHIP
‘WOODHOUSE’ 379

♦XXVI. RICHARD SELLAR AND

THE ‘MERCIFUL MAN’ 403

♦XXVII. TWO ROBBER STORIES—

WEST AND EAST 427

XXVIII. SILVER SLIPPERS: ORA
QUAKERESS AMONG
THE TURKS • 441

♦XXIX. FIERCE FEATHERS 465

♦XXX. THE THIEF IN THE TAN-

YARD 479

XXXI. HOW A FRENCH NOBLE

BECAME A FRIEND 489

XXXII. PREACHING TO NOBODY 509

COME-TO-GOOD 523

HISTORICAL NOTES 539

An Asterisk denotes stories suitable for younger children.

xii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

reproduced frccm water-colour drawings by

F. Cayley-Robinson

I. LOIS AND HER NURSE Frontispiece

II. THE BOYHOOD OF GEORGE

FOX page 36

in. ‘DREAMING OF THE COT IN

THE VALE’ 1 14

IV. ‘THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE’ 306

V. PALE WINDFLOWERS 3?4

VI. FIERCE FEATHERS 474

VIL A FRIENDS’ MEETING 534

A TALK

ABOUT SAINTS

* What are these that ^ow from afar^
These that lean over the golden bar^
Strong as the lion^ pure as the dove^
With open arms and hearts of love?
They the blessed ones gone before^
They the blessed for evermore.

Out of great tribulation they went
Home to their home of Heaven- content ;
Through flood or blood or furnace-fire^
To the rest that fulfils desire!

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI,

St. Patrick's three orders of Saints:

‘ a glory on the mountain tops: a
gleam on the sides of the hills: a
few faint lights in the valleys!

‘ The Lord is King in His Saints^
He guards them^ and guides them
with His mighty power^ into His
kingdom of glory and eternal rest,
where they find joy, and peace, and
rest eterjiaU — george fox.

A TALK about SAINTS

Y T HAT is a Saint? How I do wish
/ knew T

A little girl asked herself this question a
great many years agOy as she sat looking up at
a pcetch of sunset cloud that went sailing past
the bars of her nursery window late one Sun-

day afternoon; but the window was small
and high up^ and the cloud sailed by quickly.

As she zvatched it go y little Lois wished that
she was back in her own nursery at homCy where

the windows were large and low doivny and so
near the floor that even a small giH could see out
of them easily. Moreovery her own windows
had wide window- sills that she could sit on^with
toy-cupboards underneath.

^Thcre were no toy-cupboards in this old-
fashictfh^ nursery y where Lois was visitingy and
not many toys either. There was a dolFs house y
that her mother used to play with when she was
(;^ttle girl; but the dolls in it were all made
of wood and looked stiff and stern y ajid one^
hundred years older than tJu dolls of to-day y or
than the children either y for that matter, Be-

sidesy the dolFs house might not be opened on

Sundays.

So Lois turned again to the windoWy and
looking uj) at ity she wishedy as she had wished

3

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

many times before on this visits that it was rather
lozverdown and 7nuch larger ^ and thatthewindow
’ ledge was a little wider ^ sothf^t she could lean upon
it and see where that rosy cloud had gone.

She ran for a chair, and climbed up, hoping
to be able to see out better, Alas! the window
was a long way front the ground outside, ' She
still could not look out and see what was happen-
ing in the garden below. Even the sun had sunk
too far down for her to say good-night to it be-
fore it set. But that did not matter, for the rosy
cloud had apparently gone to fetch innumerable
other rosy cloudlets, and they were all holding
hands and dancing across the sky in a wide band,
with pale, clear pools of greeji and blue behind
them,

‘ What lovely rainboiv colours V thought the
little girl. And then the rainbow colours re-
minded her of the question that hadbeenp u^zling
her when she began to ivatch the rosy cloud. So
she repeated, out loud this time and in rather a
weary voice, ‘ Whatever is a Saint? How / 'd''
wish I knew ! And why are there no Saints on
the windows in Meeting?'

No answer ca77te to her questions, Lois
and her nurse were paying a visit all by them-
selves, They spent most of their days up in this
old nursery at the top of the big house. Nurse
had gone downstairs a long time ago, saying that
4

A TALK ABOUT SAINTS

she would bring up tea for them both on a tea-
tray, before it was time to light the lamps. For
there was no gas or^ electric light in children! s
nurseries in those days.

If Lois had been at home she would herself
have been having tea downstairs in the dining-.
rooJn at this time with her father and mother.
Then she could have asked them what a. Saint
was, and have found out all about it at once.
Father and mother always seemed to knoiv the
answers to her questions, A t least, very neatly
always. Fot Lois was so fond of asking ques-
tions, tJiat sometimes she asked some that had
no anszver; but those were silly questions, not
like this one. Lois felt certain that either her
father or her mother would have explained to her
quite clearly all about Saints, and ivould have
wanted her to ujiderstand about them, A way here
therf^^s nobody to ask. Nurse would only say.
If you ask me no questions. III tell you 7io lies!
Somehow whenever she said that, Lois fancied
meant that nurse was not very sure of the
answer herself She had already asked Aunt
Isabel in chmxh that same morning, when the
puzzle began; and Aunt Isabels answer about
* a halo * had left the little girl more perplexed
than ever,

Lois hoed heard of people 'going to church *
before, J)ut she had never understood what it

5

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

meant until to-day. At ho^pe on Sundays she
went to Meeting with father and mother. She
liked walking there, in bet^veen them, holding a
hand of each, skipping and jumping in order not
to step on the black lines of the pavement. She
liked to see the shops with their eyes all shut
tight for Sunday, and to watch for the naughty
shops, here and there, who kept a corner of their
blinds up, just to show a few toys or goodies
underneath. Lois ahvays thought that those
shops looked as if they were winking up at her;
and she smiled back at them a rather reproving
little smile. She enjoyed the walk and was sorry
when it came to an end. For, to tell the truth,
she did not enjoy the Meeting that followed it
at all.

Long before the hour was over she used to
grow very tired of the silence and of the quiet
room, tired of kicking her blue foot stoor (gently
of course, but still kicking it) and of counting
her boot buttons up and down, or else watching
the hands of the clock move slowly round its b^
calm face. ^Church' was a more interesting
place than Meeting, certainly; but then ‘ Church ’
had disadvantages of its own. Everything there
was strange to Lois. It had abnost frightened
her, this first time. She did not know ivhen she
ought to stand up, or when she ought to kneel,
and when she might sit down. Then, when the
6

A TALK ABOUT SAINTS

organ played and everybody stood up and sang
a hymn^Lois fow^ to her surprise that her throat
was beginning to feel tight and choky. For some
reason she began to wonder if father and mother
were sitting in Meeting alone^ and if they had
quite forgotten their little girl T wo small tears
gathered. In another minute they might have
slipped out of the corners of her eyes, and have
run down her cheeks. They might even have
fallen upon the page of the hymn-book she was
carefully holding upside down. And that would
have been dreadful I

Happily, just in time, she looked up and saw
something so beautiful above her that the two
tears ran back to zvherever it was they came
from, in less time than it takes to tell.

For there, above her head, was a tall, pointed,
^lass window, high up on the ivall. The glass
in window was of ivonderful colours, like a
rainbow: — deep purple and blue, shining gold,
rich, soft red, and glowing crimson, with here
^and there a green that twinkled like young beech-
leaves in the woods in spring. Best of all,
there was one bit of purest white, with sunlight
streaming through it, that shone like dazzling
snow. At first Lois only noticed the colours, and
the ugly black lines that separated them. She
wondered why the beautiful glass was divided up
into such queer shapes. There are no black lines

7

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

between the colours in a real rainbow.

Gradually^ however^ she discovered that all
the different colours meant somethings that they
were all part of a picture on the window ^ that a
tall figure was standing there Jooking down upon
her — upon hers fidgety little Lois^ kicking her
scarlet hassock in the pew. But Lois was not
kicking her hassock any longer. She was looking
up into the grave^ kind face above her on the
window. ‘ Whoever was it? Who could it be?
Was it a man or a woman? A manl Lois
thought at firsts until she saw that he was wear-
ing a robe that fell into glowing folds at his feet.
^Men never wear robes ^ do they ? unless they are
dressing-gowns. T his certainly was not a dress-
ing-gown. And what was the fiat thing like a
plate behind his head?^ Lois had never seen
either a man or a woman wear anything like thaf
before. Lf it was a plate ^how could it be faff..cned
on ? It would be sure to fall off and break. . . /

The busy little mind had so much to wonder
abouts Ikai Lois found it easy to sit stilly until thos,
sermon was over.^ as she watched the sunlight
pour throughthe differ ejit colours in turn^making
each one more beautiful and full of light as it
passed.

At length the organ stopped., and the last long
^AH-MEN^ had been sung. ^ Church sings ah-
men'^ out loudy and Meeting says ^^Amtn^^ quite

A TALK ABOUT SAINTS

gently ; fraps that s what makes the difference
between them^ Lois thought to herself wisely
As soon as the last n<^es of music had died away
she nestled close to Aunt Isabels side and said
in an eager voice ^ ^\Vhat is that lovely windozv
up there? Who is that beautiful person? I do
like his face. And is it a He or a She?*
^Hush^ darlingl * her aunt whispered. ^ Speak
lower. That is a Saint of course!

'But what is a Saint and how do you know
it is one?' the little girl whispered earnestly
pointing upwards to the tall figure throughwhich
the sunshine streamed. Aunt Isabel was busy
collecting her books and she 07ily whispered backy
'Don't you see the halo?' 'I dorit know what
a halo can be^ but a Saint is a kind of glass
window y I suppose' thought LoiSy as she followed
hey aunt down the aisle. Afterwards on her
way JiS^iey a^id at dinner y and all the afternoony
there had been so many other things to see and to
think abouty that it was not until the rosy patch
gf cloud sailed past the nursery window-pane at
sunset that she was reininded of the beautiful
colours in churchy and of the puzzle about Saints
and haloes that till then she had forgotten.

"At least y no yl didn't exactly forget, she said
to hers elf y "but I think p'raps I sort of disre-
member ed — ^ till the sunset colours reminded me.
Only I haven't found out ivhat a Saint is yet,

9

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

or a halo. And why dorUt we have them on our
Sunday windows in Meeting?'

Just at that moment Ijie door opened^ and
nurse ^ who had been enjoying a lofig talk down-
stairs in the kitchen^ came m ivith the tea-tray,
*How dark you are up here!' nurse exclaimed
in her cheerful voice. ‘ We shall have to Hght
the lamp after all^ or you will 7tever find the way
to your mouth!

So the lamp was lighted. The curtains were
drawn. The sunset sky^ fast fading nozu, was
hidden. And Lois' questiofts remained unan-
swered,

A few days later, the visit came to an end.
The next Sunday, Lois was at home again, ‘ chat-
tering like a little magpie^ as her mother said,
about everything she had seen and done. SJte
had so much to think about, that even Meeting
did not seem as long as usual, though she thought
the walls looked plainer than ever, and the glass
windows very empty, till the sight of them ret
minded her that she could find out more about
Saints now. At home in the afternoon she began.
Drazving her footstool close to the big arm-chair^
she put her elbows on her father's htee and looked
up searchingly into his face. ‘ Father, please tell
me, if you possibly can ^ pleaded an earnest little
voice, for 1 do very badly want to find put. Do

lO

A TALK ABOUT SAINTS

you know what a^aint is?* Her father laughed
* Know what a Saint is? I should think I did!
No man better V h^ answered. Lois wondered
why he glanced aq^oss to the other side of the
fire where her mother was sitting; and why she
glanced back at him and shook her head^ meeU
ing his eyes with a happy smile. Then her father
jumped upland from the lowest shelf of one of his
book-cases he fetched a fat, square volume, bound
in brown leather and gold. This he put carefully
on a table, and drawing Lois on to his knee and
putting his arm round her, he showed her a
number of photographs. Lambs were there, and
running fountains, and spangly stars, and pea-
cocks, and doves. But those pages he turned over
quickly, until he came to others: photographs of
men and women dressed in white, carry ing palms
find holding crowns in their hands.

. % told Lois that these people were ^ Saints I

that they formed a long procession on the walls
of a big church at Rave7tna,far away in Italy ;
dnd that they were made of little pieces of a sort
of shining glass called '‘mosaic! ‘ Saints have
sotnething to do with glass then. But these
photographs are not a bit like my beautiful
window*, Lois thought to herself, rather sadly.

‘ There are no colours here! She turned over
the photographs without much interest, until her
father f exclaiming, 'There,that is the one! ivantV

TI

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

showed her one portrait of a little girl standing
among all the grown-up people^ carrying just as
big a palm and crown as any of the others. He
told Lois that these crowns and palms ivere to
show that the people who carried them had all
been put to death or Unartyredl because they would
not worship heathen gods. He made Lois spell
out the letters ^SCA, eulalia' written on the
halo around the little girts head, ‘ That is Saint
Eulalial father explained, ‘ She was ojfered
her freedom and her life if she would sacrifice to
idols just one tiny grain of corn^ to show that
she renounced her allegiance to Jesus Christ; but
when the corn was put into her hands she threw
It all back into the Judgis face. After that^there
was no escape for her. She was condemned to
dte^ and she did die^ Lois, very bravely, though
she was only a little girl, not much older than you/i
H ere Lois hid her face against her fathers' coat
and shivered, ^But after that cruel death, when
her little body zvas lying unburied, a white dove
hovered over it, until a fall of snowflakes came
and hid it from people's Hght, So you see, Lois,
though Eulalia was only tzvelve years old when
she zvas put to death, she has been called Saint
Eulalia ever since, though it all happened hun-
dreds of years ago. Children can be Saints as

well as grown-up people, if they are brave enough
and faitJful enough!

12

A TALK ABOUT SAINTS

^Saints must be brave, and Saints must be
faithful^ Lois repeated, as she shut up the^ big
book and helped to c§rry it back to its shelf. *But
lots of other children have died since Sancta Eu'^
lalia was killed and her body was covered by the
snow. Surely sdine Of those children must have
beH brave and faithful too, even thotigh they are
not called Saints ? J'hey don't stand on glass win*
dows,orwcar those things that father calls haloes,
and that I call plates, round their head^ , with theif
names written on them. So Saints really are
rather puzzling sort of people still. I do hope I
shall find out more about them some day.*

Thus Lois went on wondering, till, gradually,
she came to find out more of thethmgHhat make a
Saint — not purple robes, or shining garments, or
haloes; not even crowns andpalms; but other things ,
quite different, and much more difficult to get.

'It is enough to vex a Saint!* her kind nurse
exclaimed when Lois spilled her jam at tea, all
down her clean ivhite frock. Or, on other days,
'Oh dear! my patiences is not so good as they once
were! ' and, ' These rheumatics would try the pa-
tience of a Saint!* nurse would say,zvith aweary '
sigh.

' Then the reason my Nanny isn't a Saint is
because site gets vexed when Pm naughty, and
becaus^ she isrit patient when she has a pain,*

13

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

reasoned Lois, ‘ What a number of things it does
seem to take to make a Saint! But then it takes
eggs and milk and butter and ^ugar and flour and
currants and raisins too to make a cake. Saints
must be brave and faithful; never get vexed;
have patience ahvays. Mother said pat ience was
the beginning of everything^ when I stamped my
foot because 1 broke my cotton. Do Saints have
to begin with patience too? If only I could see a
real live one with my own eyes and find out!'

Yety strange to say^ when Lois was told that
she was looking at a * real live Saint ' at lasty the
little girl did not even wish to believe it. This
happened one Saturday afternoon. She was
walking withher governess to a beautiful zvooded
Deney through which a clear stream hurried to
join the big black river that flowed past the win-
dows of Lois' home. On the way to the Dene,
they passed near a broad marsh with stepping-
stones across it. Close to the river Lois saWy in
the distancCy the roofs of some zvretcheddooking
cottages. Evidently on her way to these cottages y
balancing herself on the slippery stepping-stones y
was a lit tie old lady in a hideous black bonnet with
jet ornaments that waggled as she 7novedy and
shiny black gloves screwed up into tight cork-
screws at the finger ends. She carried a large
basket m one handy and held up her skirts with
the othery showing that she wore boots^ with

14

A TALK ABOUT SAINTS

elastic sides, which Lois particularly disliked,
^Look there V her governess said to Lois,
''actually crossing the^arsh to visit that den of
fever! Old Miss S , . . may not be a beauty^
but she certainly is a perfect Saint V

^Oh no, she's notf cried Lois with much vehe-
mente, ‘ At least, I mean I hope she isn't I she
added the ?iext minute, * You see,' she went on
apologetically, ‘ I have a jery special reason for
beinginterested in Saints; I don* tat all want any
of my Saints to look ugly like that. And, what
is more, I don*t believe they do!'

Many months passed before the time came,
when she was least expecting it, that Lois saw,
she actually did see, a 'real live Saint* for herself
H ow did she know it was a Saint ? Lois

could not tell how she knew ; but from the very
first iho 'nent that she found herself looking up
into one of the kindest, most loving faces that she
had ever seen, she was perfectly sure that she had
found a Saint at last. She saw no halo — at least
no golden halo ; but the white hair that tenderly
framed the white face looked almost like a halo of
silver, the little girl thought. It was not a beauti-
ful face; at any rate not what Lois would have
calledbeautiful beforehand, Ithadmany wrinkles
thougJt the skin was fresh and clear. The eyes
looked,somehozv,as if they had shed so many tears

IS

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAiNTS

long ago hat now there were no tears left to shed;
nothing remained but smiles. Perhaps that was
the reason they were nearly^ always smiling. As
Lois looked up and saw that gentle old face bend-
mg over her^ it gave her the same sort of mysteri-
ous feeling that she had when she gazed up into
the cloudless blue sky at noonday ^ or into a night
sky full of stars. She seemed to be looking up^
as high as ever she could^ into something infin-
itely far above her; and yet to be looking down into
something as well^ deep down into an endless
depth. 4 Or rather^ she felt that she was neither
looking up nor down^ but that she was looking
through. . . .

‘ Whyy Saints are a sort of window after alll
Lois said to her self ^ as she gave a jump of joy ^ —
Weal windows! Only not the glass kind! I have
found out at last what makes a Saint ^ and what
real live Saints look like. It is not beit^*killed
only; though I suppose they must always be ready
tobekilled. It is not being made of all the difficult
things inside only; though^ of course^ they 7nust
always be full of them. It certainly isn't wear-
tng ugly clothes or anything horrid. I know now
what really and trul)\and most especially^ makes
a Saints and that is

LETTING THE SUNLIGHT THROUGH!’

So Lois had found out something for herself

i6

A TALK ABOUT SAINTS

at last, had she not? Those are always the best
sort of discoveries ; but there are a great many
more things to find <^t about Saints that Lois'
never thought of in those days long ago. Most
inte'^esting things tJuyare ! That is one comfort
about Saints — they are always interesting^ never
dulU Dull is the one thing that real Saints can
never be, or they would stop being Saints that
very minute. Even when Saints are doing the
dullest, dreariest, most difficult tasks, they them-
selves are ahvays packed full of sunshine inside
that cannot help streammg out over the dull part
and making it interesting.

This is one thing to remember about Saints;
but there are many other things to discover. See
if you can find out some of them in the stories
that follow.

Only a few Saint stories are written here.
You xt^ill read for yourself, by arid by, many
others: stories of older Saints, and perhaps of
brighter Saints, or it may be even of saintlier
Saints than these. But in this book are written
the stories of some of the Saints who did not know
that they were Saints at all: they thought that
they were just quite ordinary men and women and
little children, and that makes them rather speci-
ally comforting to us,zvho are just quite ordinary
people too,

Moreovler, these Quaker Saints never have
c 17

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

been, never will be put on glass windows, or given
birthdays or haloes or emblems of their oivn, like
most of the other Saints. (They have never even
had their stories told before in a way that it is
easy for children to understand.

That is why these particular stories have been
written now, in this particular book

FOR YOU.

I. ‘ STIFF AS A TREE
PURE AS A BELL

am plenkuous in ioie in all cure
irilmlacionel — ST, pa ul ( Wiclif s
Translation).

^ Stand firm like a^smitten anvil
under the bloivs of a hammer; be
strong as a?i athlete of God, it is
part of a great athlete to receive
blows a fid to conquer. ’ — igna ti us.

^He was valiant for the truth, bold
in asserting it, patient in suffering
for it, unwearied in labouring in
it, steady in his testimony to it, im-
moveable as a rockl — T. ellwood
about G. FOX.

'‘George Fox never lost his temper
— he left that to his opponents: and
he had the most exasperating way
of getting the best of an argument.
His Journal. . . is like a little rusty
gatewhichopens right into the heart
of the I ^th Century, so that when
we go in by it — hey presto! we find
ourselves pilgrims with the old
Quaker in the strangest kind of
England .' — l. m. mack ay.

*And there was never any persecu-
tion that came but we sa7v it was
for good, and ive looked upon it to
be good as from god. And there
was never any prisons or sufferings
that I was in, but still it was for
bringing multitudes more out of
prison! — g. fox.

I. ‘STIFF AS A TREE,
PURE AS A BELL’

W HEN the Aays are lengthening in the
spring, even though the worst of the
winter maybe over, there is often a sharp
tooth in the March wind as it sweeps over the angry
sea and bites into the north-eastern coast of England.

Children, warm and snug in cosy rooms, like to
watch the gale and the damage it does as it hurries
past. It amuses them to see the wind at its tricks,
ruffling up tne manes of the white horses far out at
sea, blowing the ships away from their moorings in
the harbour, and playing tricks upon the passers-by,
when it comes ashore. Off fly stout old gentlemen’s
hats, round like windmills go the smart ladies’ skirts
and ribbons ; even the milkman’s fingers turn blue
with cold. It is all very well for children, safe in-
doors, to laugh at the antics of the mischievous
wind, even on the bleak north-eastern coast nowa-
days; but in times long ago, that same wind could
be a more cruel playfellow still. Come back with
me for two hundred and fifty years. Let us watch
the tricks the wind is playing on the prisoners in the
castle high up on Scarborough cliff in the year of
our Lord 1666.

Though the keen, cutting blast is the same, a
very different Scarborough lies around us from the
Scarborough modern children know. There is a
much smaller town close down by the w^ater’s edge,
and a much larger castle covering nearly the whole
of the cliff.

Nowadays, when children go to Scarborough for

21

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

their holidays in the summer, as they run down the
steep paths with their spades and buckets to dig on
the beach, they are too busy^to pay much attention
to the high cliff that juts our against the sky above
the steep red roofs of the old town. But if they do
look up for a moment they notice a pile of grey
stones at the very top of the hill. ‘ Oh, that is the
old ruined castle,’ they say to themselves; and 'then
they forget all about it and devote themselves to the
important task of digging a new castle of their own
that shall not crumble into ruins in its turn, as even
sand castles have an uncomfortable way of doing,
if they are unskilfully made.

Those children are only modern children. They
have not gone back, as you and I are trying to
do, two hundred and fifty long years up the stream
of time. If we are really to find out what Scar-
borough looked like then, we must put on our think-
ing caps and flap our fancy wings, and, shutting our
eyes very tight, not open them again until that long-
ago Scarborough is really clear before us. Then,
looking up at the castle, what shall we see ? The
same hill of course, but so covered with stately build-
ings that we can barely make out its outline. In-
stead of one old pile of crumbling stones, roofless,
doorless, windowless, there is a massive fortress
towering over us, ringed round with walls and guarded
with battlements and turrets. High above all stands
the frowning Norman Keep, of which only some of
the thick outer stones remain to-day. Scarborough
Castle was a grand place, and a strong place too, in
the seventeenth century.

In order to reach it, then as now, it was necessary

22

‘STIFF AS A TREE*

to climb the long flights of stone steps that stretch
up from the lower tOwn near the water's edge to the
high, arched gateway uoon the Castle Hill. We will
Climb those steps, oniy of course the stones were
newer ana cleaner then, and less worn by gener-
ations of climbing feet. Up them we mount till we
reach the gateway with its threatening portcullis,
wheje the sc»ldiers of Kmg Charles the Second, in
their jackboots, are v^alking up and down on guard,
determined to keep out all intruders. Intruders we
certainly are, seeing that we belong to another gener-
ation and another century. There is no entrance
at that gateway for us. Yet except through that gate-
way there is noway into the castle, and all the windows
on this side are high up in the walls, and barred and
filled with strong thick glass.

Now let us go round to the far side of the cliff
where the castle overlooks the sea. Here the fortress
still frowns above us ; but low^er down, nearer our
level, we can see some holes and caves scooped out
of the solid rock, through which the wind blows and
shrieks eerily. As these caves can only be reached
by going through the castle, some of the prisoners
are kept here for safety. The windows have no glass.
They are merely holes in the rock, open to fog and
snow and bitter wind. Another hole in the cliff does
duty for a chimney after a fashion, but even if the
prisoners are allowed to light a fire they are scarcely
any warmer, for the whole cave becomes filled with
smoke. And now we must flap our fancy wings still
more vigorously, until somehow we stand outside one
of those prisoh holes, scooped out of the cliff, and
can look down and see what is to be seen inside it.

23

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

There is only one man in this particular prison
cave, and what is he doing? Is he moving about
to keep himself warm ? first he seems to be,
for he walks from side to side without a moment’s
rest. Every now and then he stretches his arm
out of the window, apparently throwing something
away. He is certainly ill. His body and legs are
badly swollen, and there are great lumps in the
places where his joints and knuckles ought to be.
Well then, if he is ill, why does he not lie still in bed
and restand get well ? For even in this wretched cave-
room there is something that looks like a bed in one
corner. It has no white sheets or soft blankets, but
still it has four legs and a sort of coverlet, and at
least the prisoner could rest upon it, which would
be better for him than dancing about. Look again !
The bed stands under a gaping hole in the roof, and
a stream of water is dripping steadily down upon it.
Thecoarse coverings mustbe soaked through already,
and the hard mattress too. It is really less like a
bed than a damp and nasty little pond. No wonder
the prisoner does not choose to lie there. But then,
why not move the bed somewhere else? And what
is that round thing like a platter in his hand, and
what is he doing with it? Is he playing ‘Turn the
Trencher’ to keep himself warm?

Look again! How could he move the bed? He
is in a tiny cave, and all its walls are leaky. The
bed must stand in that particular corner because
there is nowhere else that it could be placed. Now
look down at the floor. Notice how uneven it is,
and the big pools of water standing on it, and then
you will understand what the prisoner is doing. In-
24

‘STIFF AS A TREE*

deed he is not playing ‘Turn the Trencher^; he is
trying to scoop up s6me of the water in that shallow
platter, because he has nothing else in the room that,
will hold it. If he can ao this fast enough, and can
manage to pour enough of the water away out of one
of the holes in the walls, he may be able to keep
himself from being flooded out, and thus he may
presarve one little dry patch oi floor, dry enough
for his swollen feet to stand on, till the storm is over.
But it is like trying to bale water out of a very leaky
boat; for always faster than he can scoop it up and
pour it away, more rain comes pouring in steadily,
dripping and drenching. The wind shrieks and
whistles and the prisoner is numb with cold.

What a wicked man he must be, to be punished
by being put in this dreadful place ! Certainly, if he
has committed some dreadful crime, he has found
a teirible punishment. But does he look wicked?
See, at last he is too stiff and weary to move about kny
longer. In spite of the rain and the wind he sinks
down exhausted upon a rickety chair and draws it
to the spot where there is the best chance of a little
shelter. There he sits in silence for some time. He
is soaked to the skin, as well as tired and stiff and
hungry. There is a small mug by the door, but it is
empty and there is not a sign of food. Some bitter
water to drink and a small piece of bread are all the
food he has had to-day, and that is all gone now, for
it was so very little. In this place a small threepenny
loaf of bread has sometimes to last for three weeks.
This poor man must be utterly miserable and
wretched. But is he? Let us watch him.

Do you think he can be a wicked man after all ?

25

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Is not the prisoner being punished through some
dreadful mistake ? He looks kind and good, and,
stranger still, he looks hap^, even through all his
sufferings in this horrible prreon. His face has a sort
of brightness in it, like the mysterious light there is
sometimes to be seen in a dark sky, behind a thunder-
storm. A radiance is about him too as if, in spite
of all he is enduring, he has some big joy that shines
through everything and makes it seem worth while.

He is actually ‘letting the sunlight through,^
even in this dismal place. Any one who can do
that must be a very real and a very big saint indeed.
We must just find out all that we can about him. Let
us take a good look at him now, while we have the
chance. Then we shall know him another time, when
we meet him again, having all sorts of adventures in
all sorts of places. It is impossible to see his eyes, as
he sits by the bed, for they are downcast, but we can
see that he has a long, nearly straight nose, and lips
tightly pressed together. His hair is parted and
hangs down on each side of his head, stiff and lank
now, owing to the wet, but in happier days it must
have hung in little curls round his neck, just below
his ears. He is a tall man, with a big strong-looking
body. In spite of the coarse clothes he wears, there
is a strange dignity about him. . You feel something
drawing you to him, making you want to know more
about him.

You feel somehow as if you were in the presence
of some one who is very big, and that you yourself
are very small, smaller perhaps than you ever felt in
your life. Yet you feel ready to do anything for
him, and, at the same time, you believe ‘that, if only
26

‘STIFF AS A TREE’

you could make him know that you are there, he
would be ready to dd anything for you. Even in this
wretched den he carries Eimself with an air of author-,
icy, as if he were accustomed to command. Now, at
last he is looking up ; ard we can see his eyes. Most
wonderful eyes they are ! Eyes that look as if they
could pierce through all sorts of disguises, and read
the deepest secrets of a man’s heart. They are kind
eyes too ; and look as if they could be extraordinarily
tender a Uiriies. They are something like a shepherd’s
eyes, as if they were accustomed to gazing out far and
wide in search of sprayed sheep and lost lainbs. Yet
they are also like the eyes of a Judge ; thoroughly
well able to distinguish right from wrong. It would
be terrible to meet those eyes after doing anything
the least bit crooked or shabby or untrue. They
look as if they would know at the first glance just
how much excuses were worth ; and what was the
truth. No wonder that once, when those eyes fell on
a man who was arguing on the wrong side, he felt
ashamed all of a sudden and cried out in terror : ‘ Do
not pierce me so with thine eyes ! Keep thine eyes
off me !’ Another time when this same prisoner was
reasoning with a crowd of people, who did not agree
with him, they all cried out with one accord : ‘Look
at his eyes, look at his eyes 1’ And yet another time
when he was riding through an angry mob, in a city
where men were ready to take his life, they dared not
touch him. ‘ Oh, oh,’ they cried, ‘see, he shines I he
glisters ! ’

Then what happened next? We do not want to
look at the prisoner in fancy any longer. We want
really to know about him : to hear the beginnings

27

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

and endings of those stories and of many others.
And that is exactly what we are going to do. The
prisoner is going to tell us lijs own true story in his
own real words. There is no need for our fancy
wings any longer. They may shrivel up and drop off
unheeded. For that prisoner is george fox, and
he belongs to English history. He has left the whole
story of -his life and adventures written in twoiarge
folio volumes that may still be seen in London. The
pages ate so old and the edges have worn so thin in the
two hundred and fifty years since they were written,
that each page has had to be most carefully framed
in strong paper to keep it from getting torn. The
ink is faded and brown, and the writing is often
crabbed and difficult to read. But it can be read,
and it is full of stories. In olden times, probably,
the book was bound in a brown leather cover, but
now, because it is very old and valuable, it has been
clothed with beautiful red leather, on which is
stamped in gold letters, the title ;

GEORGE FOX’S JOURNAL.

Now let us open it at the right place, and, before
any of the other stories, let us hear what the writer
says about that dismal prison in Scarborough Castle:
how long he stayed there, and how he was at last set
free. ‘

‘ One day the governor of Scarborough castle,
Sir Jordan Crosland, came to see me. I desired the
governor to go into my room and see what a place I
had. I had got a little fire made in it, and it was
so filled with smoke that when they were in it they
could hardly find their way out again. . . *. I told him
28

‘STIFF AS A TREE’

I was forced to lay out about fifty shillings to stop out
the rain, and keep tKe room from smoking so much.
When I had been at ^at charge and had made it.
somewhat tolerable, they removed me into a worse
room, where I had neither chimney nor fire hearth.'

(1'his last is the room in the castle cliff that is
still called ‘George Fox's prison/ where we have been
standing in imagination and Foking in upon him.
We will listen while he describes it again, so as to
get accustomed to his rather old-fashioned English.)

‘This neing to the sea-side and lying much open,
the wind drove in the rain forcibly, so that the water
came over my bed, and ran about the room, that I
was fain to skim it up with ? platter. And when my
clothes were wet, I had no fire to dry them; so that
my body was benumbed with cold, and my fingers
swelled, that one was grown as big as two. Though I
was at some charge in this room also, yet I could not
keep out tlie wind and rain. . . . Afterwards I hired a
soldier to fetch me water and bread, and something
to make a fire of, when I was in a room where a fire
could be made. Commonly a threepenny loaf served
me three weeks, and sometimes longer, and most
of my drink was water, with wormwood steeped or
bruised in it. . . . As to friends T was as a man buried
alive, for though many came far to see me, yet few
were suffered to come to me. . . . The officers often
threatened that I should be hanged over the wall.
Nay, the deputy governor told me once, that the King,
knowing that I had a great interest in the people,
had sent me thither, that if there should be any stir-
ring in the nation, they should hang me over the wall
to keep ^e people down. A while after they talked

29

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

much of hanging me. But I told them that if that
was what they desired and it was permitted them, I
•was ready; for I never feare^ death nor sufferings in
my life, but I was known to be an innocent, peace-
able man, free from all stirrings and plottings, and
one that sought the good of all men. Afterwards, the
Governor growing kinder, I spoke to him when he
was going to London, and desired him to speuk to
Esquire Marsh, Sir Francis Cobb, and some others,
and let them know how long I had lain in prison, and
for what, and he did so. When he came down again,
he told me that Esquire Marsh said he would go a
hundred miles barefoot for my liberty, he knew me
so well j and several others, he said, spoke well of
me. From which time the Governor was very loving
to me.

‘ There were among the prisoners two very bad
men, who often sat drinking with the officers and
soldiers ; and because I would not sit and drink with
them, it made them the worse against me. One time
when these two prisoners were drunk, one of them
(whose name was William Wilkinson, who had been
a captain), came in and challenged me to fight with
him. I seeing what condition he was in, got out of
his way; and next morning, when be was more sober,
showed him how unmanly a thing it was in him to
challenge a man to fight, whose principle he knew it
was not to strike ; but if he was stricken on one ear
to turn the other. I told him that if he had a mind
to fight, he should have challenged some of the
soldiers, that could have answered him in his own
way. But, however, seeing he had challenged me, I
was now come to answer him, with my Jiands in

30

‘STIFF AS A TREE’

my pockets : and, reachijig my head towards him,
“Here/’ said 1, “here* is my hair, here are my cheeks,
here is my back.” WitlT|that, he skipped away from
me and went into another room, at which the soldiers
fell a-laughing; and one of ‘he officers said, “You are
a happy man that can bear such things.” Thus he
was cortquered without a blow.

‘ . f . After I had lain a prisoner above a year in
Scarborough Castle, I sent a letter to the King, in
which I gave him an account of my imprisonment,
and the bad usage I. had received in prison ; and also
I was informed no man could deliver me but he.
After this, John Whitehead being at London, and
being acquainted v\ ith Esquire Marsh, went to visit
him, and spoke to him about me ; and he undertook,
if John Yniitehead would get the state of my case
drawn up, to deliver it to the master of requests. Sir
John Birkenhead, and endeavour to get a release for
me. So John Whitehead . . . drew up an account
of my imprisonment and sufferings and carried it to
Marsh ; and he went with it to the master of requests,
who procured an order from the King for my release.
The substance of this order was that the King, being
certainly informed, that I was a man principled
against plotting and fighting, and had been ready at
all times to discover plots, rather than to make any,
therefore his royal pleasure was, that I should’ be
discharged from my imprisonment. As soon as this
order was obtained, John Whitehead came to Scar-
borough with it and delivered it to the Governor;
who, upon receipt thereof, gathered the officers to-
gether, . . . and being satisfied that I was a man^of
peaceable life, he discharged me freely, and gave me

31

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

the following passport : —

‘“Permit the bearer hereof, george fox, late a
prisoner here, and now discharged by his majesty’s
order, quietly to pass about his lawful occasions,
without any molestation. Given under my hand at
Scarborough Castle, this first day of September
1666. — JORDAN CROSLAND, Govcmor of Scar-
borough Castle.”

‘ After I was released, I would have made the
Governor a present for his civility and kindness he
had of late showed me ; but he would not receive
anything; saying “Whatever good he could for me
and my friends, he would do it, and never do them
any hurt.” . . . He continued loving unto me unto his
dying day. The officers also and the soldiers were
mightily changed, and became very respectful to me;
when they had occasion to speak of me they would
say, “ HE IS AS STIFF AS A TREE, AND AS PURE AS A
BELL ; FOR WE COULD NEVER BOW HIM.” ’

II. ‘PURE FOY,

MA JOYE’

‘ Outwardly there was little resem-
blance between George Fox and
Francis of Assisi^ heHveen the young
Leicestershire Shepherd of the
xviith Century and the young
Italian merchant of the xiiith^ but
they both felt the poiver of god and
yielded themselves iv holly to it: both
left father and mother and home;
both defied the opinions of their time :
both won their way throtegh bitter
opposition to solid success: both cast
themselves** upon the infinite love op
GOD^\' both were most truly sur-
rendered souls ; but Francis sub-
mitted himself to established autli o?'-
ity, Fox 07 ily to the spirit of god
speaking in the smgle soul I

* In solitude and silence Fox found

GOD and heard Him. He pro-
claimed that the Kmgdoifi of god
is the Kingdom of a living Spirit
Who holds converse with His peo-
pled BISHOP WESTCOTT,

* Some place their religion in books^
some in images, some in the po77ip
and sple7tdour of external worship,
but so7ne with illuminated under-
standings hear what the Holy
Spirit speaketh in their he arts I —

THOMAS A KEMP IS.

* iMrd, when I look upon mine ow7i
life it see77is Thou hast led me so
carefully, so tenderly. Thou const
have attended to none else; but
when I see how wonderfully Thou
hast led the world and art leading
it, I am a7nazed that Thou hast
had tune to attend to such as II — ^
AUGUSTINE.

II. ‘PURE FOY,

MA JOYE’

H e is stiff as a tree and pure as a bell, and
we could never bow him/ So spoke the
rough soldiers of Scarborough Castle of
their prisoner, George Fox, after he had bepn set at
liberc)j» A splendid thing it was for soldiers to say
of a prisoner whom they had held absolutely in their
power. But a tree does not grow stiff all at once. It
takes many years for a tiny seedling to grow into a
sturdy oak. A bell has undergo many processes
before it gains its perfect form and pure ringing note.
And a whole lifetime of joys and sorrows had been
needed to develop the ‘stiffness* (or steadfastness,
as we should call it now) and purity of character
that astonished the soldiers in their prisoner. There
will not be much story in this history of George Fox’s
early days, but it is the foundation-stone on which
most of the later stories will be built.

It was in July 1624, the last year in which James
the First, King of England, ruled in his palace at
VVliitehall,that far away in a quiet Leicestershire vil-
lage their first baby was born to a weaver and his wife.
They lived in a small cottage with a thatched roof and
wooden shutters, in a village then knov^n as ‘Drayton-
in-the-Clay,’ because of the desolate waters of the
marshlands that lay in winter time close round the
walls of the little hamlet. Even though the fens
and marshes have now long ago been drained and
turned into fertile country, the village is still called
Fenny Djayton.’ The weaver’^ name was Christo-

35

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

pher Fox. His wife’s maiden name had been Mai^
I^go; and the name they gave to their first little son
• was George.

Mary Lago came ‘of the stock of the martyrs’:
that is to say, either her parents or her grand-par-
ents had been put to death for their faith. They had
been burnt at the stake, probably, in one of tbe per-
secutions in the reign of Queen Mary. From her
‘martyr stock ’ Mary Lago must have learned, when
she was quite a little girl, to worship God in purity
of faith. Later on, after she had become the mpther
of little George, it was no wonder that her baby son
sitting on her knee, looking up into her face, or listen-
ing to her stories, learned from the very beginning to
try to be ‘ Pure as a Bell.’

Mary Lago’s husband, Christopher Fox, did not
come ‘of the stock of the martyrs,’ but evidently he
had inherited from his ancestors plenty of tough
courage and sturdy sense. Almost the only story
remembered about him is that one day he stuck his
cane into the ground after listening to a long dispute
and exclaimed: ‘Now I see that if a man will but
stick to the truth it will bear him out.’

When little George grew old enough to scramble
down from his mother’s knee and to walk with un-
steady steps across the stone- flagged floor of the
cottage, there was his weaver father sitting at his
loom, making a pleasant rhythmic sound that filled
the small house with music. As the boy watched
the skilful hands sending the flying shuttle in andout
among the threads, he learned from his father, not
only the right way to weave good reliable stuff, but
also how to weave themany coloured threa^sof every^
36

‘PURE FOY, MA JOYE’

day life intp a strong character. The village people
called his father ‘ Righteous Chtister/ which shows
that he too must havefbeen ‘stiff as a tree' in
following what he knew to be right ; for a name like
that is not very easily earned where village eyes are
sharp and village tongues are ^shrewd:

Lessjhan a mile fronoLthe weaver’s*^i0ottage stood
the GkUfch and the Marfgi* House cidfe by side. The
chujpcl^yard had a wail of solid red bricks, overshadow-
ed by a border of solemn old yew-trees. The Manor
House was encirc?ied by a moat on which graceful
white swans swam to and fro. For centuries the
Purefoj^ family had been Squires of Drayton village.
They hadinhabited the Manor Housewhile they were
alive, and had been buried in the churchyard close
by after t^iey were^dead. The present Squire was a
certain colonel george purefoy. It may have
been after him that ‘ Righteous Christer ' called his
eldest son George, or it may have been after that
other George, ‘ Saint George for Merrie England,’
whose image killing the Dragon was to be seen en-
graved on each rare golden ‘noble’ that found its
way to the weaver’s home. Christopher and Mary
Fox were both of them possessed of more education
than was usual among country people at that time,
when reading and writing were still rare accomplish-
ments. ‘ Righteous Christer ’ was an important man
in the small village. Besides being a weaver, he was
also a churchwarden, and was able to sign his own
name in bbld characters, as may still be seen to-day in
the parish registers, where his fellow-churchwarden,
being unable to read or write, was only able to sign
+iis name^with a cross. Unfortunately this same

37

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

register, which ought to record the exact day of
July 1624 on which little George was baptized here
in the old church, no longer mentions him, since,
more than a hundred years after his time, the wife of
the Sfejtton of Fenny Drayton, running short of paper
to cover her janvpots, must needs lay hands on the
valuable Church records and tear out a few priceless
pages just here. So, although several other biothers
and sisters followed George and came to live in the
weaver’s cottage during the next few years, we know*
non^ of their ages or birthdays, until we come to the
record of the baptism of the youngest sister Sarah.
Happily her page came last of all, after the ^exton’s
jan^ was finished, and thus Sarah’s name escaped
being made into the lid of a jam*pot. But we will
hope that the weaver and his wife remembered and
kept all their children’s birthdays on the right days,
even though they are forgotten now. However that
may have been, George’s parents ‘ endeavoured to
train him up, as they did their other children, in the
common way of worship — his mother especially *
being eminent for piety; but even from a child he
was seen to be of another frame of mind from his
brethren, for he was more religious, retired, stilj and
solid, and was also observing beyond his age. His
mother, seeing this extraordinary temper and godli-
ness, which so early did shine through him, so that
he would not meddle with childish games, carried
herself indulgent towards him. . . . Meanwhile he
learned to read pretty well, and to write as much as
would serve to signify his meaning to others.’

When he saw older people behaving in a rowdy,
frivolous way, it distressed him, and the little boy

38

‘PURE FOY, MA JOYE’

used to say to himself: ‘If ever I come to be a man
surely I will ool be so wantoa*

‘ When I came to eleven years of age/ he says
himself in his Journal, ‘ I knew pureness and right-
eousness; for while I was a child 1 waS tau^t how
to walk so as to be kept pure» and to be faithful in
two ways, both inwardly to God, and outwardly to
man, and to keep to Yea and Nay in all things.*

At that time there was a law obliging everybody
to attend Church on Sundays, and as the services
lasted for several hours at u time, the weaver*s
children doubtless had time to look about them,
and learned to know the stones of the old church
well. When the Squire and his family were at home
t|iey sat in the Purefoy Chapel in the North Aisle.
From this Chapel a door in the wall opened on to a
path that led straight over the drawbridge across the
moat to the Manor House. It must have been inter-
esting for all the village children to watch for the
opening and shutting of that door. But up in the
chancel there was, and still is, something even more
interesting: the big tomb that a certain Mistress
Jocosa or Joyce Purefoy had put up to the memory
of her husband, who had died in the days of good
Queen Bess.

‘PURE FOY, MA JOYE,* the black letters of
the family motto, can still be read on a marble scroll.
If George in his boyhood ever asked his mother
what the French words meant, Mary Fox, who was,
we are told, ‘accomplished above her degree in the
place where she lived,* may have been able to tell
him that they mean, in English, ‘ Pure faith is my
Joy*; or thal, keeping the rhyme, they might be trans-

39

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

lated as follows: —

*MY FAITH ^URE, MY JOY SURE.*

Then remembering what ha€ happened in her own
family, surely she would add, ‘And I, who come of
martyr stock, know that that is true. Even if you
have to suifer fot it, my son, even if you have to die
for it, keep your Faith pure, and your Joy will be sure
in the end.* •

Then Righteous Christer would take the little
lad up on his shoulder and show him the broken
spear above the tomb, the crest of the Purefoys,
and tell him its story. Hundreds of years before,
one of the Squires of this family had defended his
liege lord on the battle-field at the risk of his own
life, and even after his weapon, a spear, had been
broken in his hand. His lord, out of gratitude for
this, had given his faithful follower, not only the right
to wear the broken spear in token of his valour ever
after as a crest, but also by his name and by his
motto to proclaim to all men the pure faith
(purefoy) that had given him this sure and last*
ing joy. Ever since, for hundreds of years, the Pure-
foy family liad handed down, by their name, by their
motto, and by the broken spear on their crest, this
noble tradition of loyalty and allegiance — enshrined
like a shining jewel in the centre of the muddy village
of Drayton-in-the-Clay.

This was not the only battle story the boy must
have known well. A few miles from Fenny Drayton
is ‘ the rising ground of Market Bosworth,* better
known as Bosworth Field. As he grew older George
loved to wander over the fields that surrounded his
birthplace. He ‘must have often pas'secj the site
40

‘PURE FOY, MA JOYE’

of Henryks camp, perhaps may l^ave drunk some-
timel at the well at which Richard is said to have
quenched his thirst.’ But although his home was
near this old battlefield, the boy grew up in a peace-
ful England. Probably t\o one in Fenny Drayton
imagined that in a very few years the smiling English
meadows would once more be drenched in blood.
George Fox in his country home was brought up to
follow country pursuits, and was especially skilful in
the management of sheep. He says in his Journal:
‘ As I grew up, my relations thought to have made
me a priest, but others persuaded to the contrary.
Whereupon I was put to a man who was a shoemaker
by trade, and dealt in wool. lie also used grazing
and sold cattle; and a great deal went through my
hands. While I was with him he was blest, but after
I left him, he broke and came to nothing. I never
1^^‘onged man or woman in all that time. . . . While I
was in that service, I used in my dealings the word
“Verily,” and it was a common saying among those
that knew me, “if George says Verily, there is no
altering him.” When boys and rude persons would
laugh at me, I let them alone, but people generally
had a love to me for my innocence and honesty.

‘ When I came towards 1 9 years of age, being
upon business at a Fair, one of my cousins, whose
name was Bradford, a professor, having another
professor with him, asked me to drink part of a jug of
beer with them. I, being thirsty, went with them, for
I loved anj^ that had a sense of good. When we had
drunk a glass apiece, they began to drink healths
and called for more drink, agreeing together that he
that woul(i not drink should pay for all. I was

41

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

grieved that they should do so, and putting my hand
into my pocket took out a groat and laid it on the
table before them, saying, If it be so, I will leave
you/^ So I went away, and when I had done my
business I returned home, but did not go to bed
that night, nor could I sleep, but sometimes walked
up and down and prayed and cried unto the Lord,
who said to me : “Thou must forsake all, young and
old, keep out of all and be a stranger to all.”

‘Then at the command of God, the 9th of the 7th
month,* 1643, ^ relations, and broke off all

familiarity or fellowship with young or old.’

The old-fashioned English of the ‘Journal’
makes this story rather puzzling at the first reading,
because several words have changed in meaning
since it was written. The name ‘professors,’ did not
then mean learned men who teach or lecture in a Uni-
versity, but any men who ‘ professed ’ to be par-
ticularly religious and good. These ‘professionally re-
ligious people’ are generally known as ‘the Puritans,’
and it was meeting with these bad specimens among
them who ‘professed’ a religion they did not attempt
to practise, that so dismayed George Fox. Here at
any rate ‘Pure Faith’ was not being kept either to
God or men. He must find a more solid found-
ation on which to rest his own soul’s loyalty and
allegiance. Over the porch of the Church at Fenny
Drayton is painted now, not the Purefoy motto, but
the words : ‘ I will go forth in the strength of the
Lord God.’ It was from this place that Gborge Fox
set forth on tlie long search for a ‘Pure Faith’ that

* The 7th monih would be September, because the years then
began with March. •

42

‘PURE FOY, MA JOYE’

when he found it, was to bring both to him and to
many thousands of his countrymen a ‘ Sure Joy.’

Why Righteous Chr ft ter and his wife did not help
Gedtge more at this time remains a puzzle. They
may have been afraid lest he was making a terrible
mistakeinleavingtheworshiptheyknewandfollowed,
or they may have guessed that God was really calling
him to do some work for Him bigger than they could
understand, and may have felt that they could help
their boy best by leaving him free to follow the Voice
that spoke to him in the depths of his own heart, even
if he had to fight his owr^ battles unaided. Or poss-
ibly their thoughts were too full of all the actual
battles that were filling the ai»* just then to think any
other troubles important. For our Quaker Saints are
not legendary people; they are a real part of English
History.

All through the years of George’s boyhood the
struggle between King Charles the First and his
Parliament had been getting more tense and em-
bittered. The abolition of the Star Chamber (May
1640), the attempted arrest of the five Members
(October 1642), the trial and death, first of Strafford
(May 1641) and then cf Laud (January 1645)— all
these events had been convulsing the great heart of
the English nation during the long years while young
George had been quietly keeping his master’s sheep
and cattle in his secluded Leicestershire village.

A year before he left home the long-dreaded
Civil War had at last broken out. But the Civil War
that broke out in the soul of the young shepherd
lad, the struggle between good and evil when he saw
*his Purita^i cousin tempting other people to drink

4 ?

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

and carouse, was to him a more momentous event
than all the outward battles that were raging. His
■Journal hardly mentions the rival armies of King-
arid Parliament that ^ere marching through the land.
Yet in reading of hiS early struggles in his own spirit,
we must always keep in the background of our
minds the thought of the great national struggle that
was raging at the same time. It was not in the
orderly, peaceful, settled England of his earliest years
that the boy grew to manhood, but in an England
that was being torn asunder by the rival faiths and
passions of her sons. Men^s minds were filled with
the perplexities of great national problems of Church
and State, of tyranny and freedom. No wonder that
at such a time everyone was too busy to spare much
sympathy or many thoughts for the spiritual perjilex-
ities of one obscure country lad.

Right into the very middle, then, of this troubled,
seething England, George Fox plunged when he left
his home at Fenny Drayton. The battle of Marston
Moor was fought the following year, July 1644, and
Naseby the summer after that. But George was not
heeding outward battles. Up and down the country
he walked, seeking for help in his spiritual difficulties
from all the different kinds of people he came across;
and there were a great many different kinds. The
England of that day was not only torn by Civil War,
it was also split up into innumerable different sects,
now that the attempt to force everyone to worship
according to one prescribed fashion was ‘at length
being abandoned. In one small Yorkshire town it
is recorded that there were no less than forty of
these sects worshipping in different ways about this**
44

‘PURE FOY, MA JOYE’

time, while new sects were continually arising.

Perhaps it was a generous wish to give the pro-
fessors another chance ^nd not to judge the whole
party from the bad specimens he had met, that made
George go back to the Pu itans** for help. At first
they made much of the young enquirer; but, alas!
they all had the same defect as those he had met
already. Their spoken profession sounded very fin^,
but they did not carry it out in their lives.

‘They sought to be acquainted with me, but I
was afraid of them, for I was sensible they did not
possess what they professed.’ In other words, their
faith did not ring true. The professors were certainly
not ‘Pure as a Bell.’

George Fox’s test was always the same, both for
his own religion and other people’s: ‘Is this faith
real? Is it true? Can you actually live out what you
profess to believe? And do you? Is your faith pure?
Is your joy sure?’

Finding that, in the case of the professors, a
sorrowful ‘No’ was the only answer that their lives
gave to these questions, George says: ‘A strong
temptation to despair came over me. I then saw
how Christ was tempted, and mighty troubles I was
in. Sometimes I kept myself retired in my chamber,
and often walked solitary in the Chace to wait upon
the Lord.’

It must not be forgotten that part of the Puritan
worship consisted in making enormously long pray-
ers in spoken words, and preaching sermons that
lasted several hours at a time. George Fox became
more and more sure that this was not the worship
•God wanted from him, as he thought over these

45

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

matters in solitude under the trees of Barnet Chace.

After a time he went back to his relations in
Leicestershire. They saw tVie youth was unhappy,
and very naturally thought it would be far better for
him to settle down and have a happy home of his
own than to go wandering about the country in dis;
tress about the state of his soul.

* Being returned into I^eicestershire, my relfitions
would have had me married; but I told them I was
but a lad and must get wisdom.’ Other people
said: ‘No, don’t marry him yet. Put him into the
auxiliary band among the soldiery. Once he gets
fighting, that will soon knock the notions out of his
head.’

Young George would not consent to this plan
either. He had his own battle to fight, his own
victory to win, unaided and alone. He did not yet
know that it was useless for him to seek for outward
help. Being still only a lad of nineteen he thought
that surely there must be someone among his elders
who could help him, if only he could find out the
right person. Having failed with the professors, he
determined next to consult the priests and see if
they could advise him in his perplexities. ‘Priests’ is
another word that has changed its meaning almost as
much as ‘professors’ has done. By ‘priests’ George
Fox does not mean Anglican or Roman Catholic
clergy, but simply men of any denomination who
were paid for preaching. At this particular time the
English Rectories and Vicarages were mo^'^tly occu-
pied by Presbyterians and Independents. It was
they who preached and who were paid for preaching
in the village churches, which is what he means by*
46

‘PURE FOY, MA JOYE’

calling them priests* in his Journal.

In these stories there is no need to think of
George Fox as argumf or fighting against real
Christianity in any of the churches. He was fight-
ing, rather, against sham religion, formality and
hypocrisy wherever he found them. In that great
fight all who truly love Truth and God are on the
same side, even though they are called by different
names. So remember that these old labels that he
uses for his opponents have changed their meaning
very considerably in the three hundred years that
have uassed since his birth. Remember too that the
world had had at that time nearly three hundred
years less in which to learn good manners than it
has now. The manners and customs of the day were
much rougher than those of modern times. How-
ever much we may disagree with people, there is no
need for us to tell them so in the same sort of harsh
language that was too often used by George Fox
and his contemporaries.

To these Presbyterian priests, therefore, George
went next to ask for counsel and help. The first
he tried was the Reverend Nathaniel Stephens, the
priest of his own village of Fenny Drayton. At
first Priest Stephens and young George seemed to
get on very well together. Another priest was often
with Stephens, and the two learned men would
often talk and argue with the boy, and be astonished
at the wise answers he gave. ‘It is a very good, full
answer,* Stephens once said to George, ‘and such
an one as' I have not heard.* He applauded the
boy and spoke highly of him, and even used the
answers he gave in his own sermons on Sundays.

47

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

This was a compliment, but it cost him George’sl
friendship and respect, because he felt it was a
deceitful practice. The Jotirnal says: ‘What I said
in discourse to him, on week-days, he would preach of
on first days, which gave me a dislike to him. This
priest afterwards became my great persecutor.*

Priest Stephens’ wife was also very much opposed
to Fox, and it is said that on one occasion she ‘very
unseemly plucked and haled him up and down, and
scoffed and laughed.’ Fox always felt that this priest
and his wife were his bitter foes ; but other people
described Priest Stephens as ‘ a good scholar and
a useful preacher, in his younger days a very hard
student, in his old age pleasant and cheerful.’ So,
as generally happens, there may have been a friendly
side to this couple for those who took them the
right way.

After this. Fox continues, ‘I went to another
ancient priest at Mancetter in Warwickshire, and
reasoned with him about the ground of despair and
temptations; but he was ignorant of my condition;
he bade me take tobacco and sing psalms. Tobacco
was a thing I did not love, and psalms I was not in
a state to sing; I could not sing. Then he bid me
come again and he would tell me many things; but
when I came he was angry and pettish; for my former
words had displeased him. He told my troubles,
sorrows and griefs to his servants so that it got
among the milk-lasses. It grieved me that I should
have opened my mind to such a one. 1 saw they
were all miserable comforters, and thts brought
my troubles more upon me. Then I heard of a
priest living about Tam worth, which was accounted
48

PURE FOY, MA JOYE’

an experienced man, and I went seven miles to him;
but I found him like sm empty hollow cask, I heard
also of one called Dr. Qraddock of Coventry, and
went to him. I asked him the ground of tempta-
tions and despair, and how troubles came to be
wrought in man? He asked me, ‘Who was Christas
Father and Mother?*’ I told him Mary was His
Moihef, and that He was supposed to be the son
of Joseph, but He was the Son of God. Now, as
we were walking together in his garden, the alley
being narrow, I chanced, in turning, to set my foot
on the side of a bed, at which the man was in a rage,
as if his house had been on fire. Thus all our dis-
course was lost, and I went away in sorrow, worse
than 1 was when I came. I thought them miserable
comforters, and saw they were all as nothing to me;
for they could not reach my condition. After this
I went to another, one Macham, a priest in high
account. He would needs give me some physic,
and I was to have been let blood; but they could
not get one drop of blood from me, either in arms
or head (though they endeavoured to do so), my body
being, as it were, dried up with sorrows, grief and
troubles, which were so great upon me that I could
have wished I had never been born, or that I had
been born blind, that I might never have seen wicked-
ness or vanity; and deaf, that I might never have
heard vain and wicked words, or the Lord’s name
blasphemed. When the time called Christmas came,
while others were feasting and sporting themselves,

I looked out poor widows from house to house, and
gave them some money. When I was invited to
tparriages (as •! sometimes was) I went to none at
E 49

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

all, but the next day, or soon after, I would go to
visit them; and if they were poor, I gave them some
money; for I had whereiA’ith both to keep myself
from being chargeable to others, and to administer
something to the necessities of those who were in
need/

Three years passed in this way, and then at last
the first streaks of light began to dawn in tlje dark-
ness. They came, not in any sudden or startling
way, but little by little his soul was tilled with the
hope of dawn :

Silently as the morning

Conies on when night is done,

Or the crimson streak, on ocean’s check,

Grows into the great sun.

He says, ‘About the beginning of the year 1646,
as I was going into Coventry, a consideration arose
in me how it was said, “All Christians are believers,
both Protestants and Papists,” and the Lord oi)ened
to me, that if all were believers, then they were all
born of God, and were passed from death unto life,
and that none were true believers but such, and
though others said they were believers, yet they were
not.'

Possibly George Fox was looking up at the ‘Three
Tall Spires' of Coventry when this thought came to
him, and remembering in how many different ways
Christians had worshipped under their shadow: first
the Latin Mass, then the order of Common Prayer.j
and now the Puritan service. ‘At another time,*'
he says, ‘as I was walking in a field on a first day
morning, the Lord opened to me “That being bred
at Oxford or Cambridge was not ‘enough to fit

50

‘PURE FOY, MA JQYE’

and qualify men to be ministers of Christ : ” and I
wondered pt it because it was the common belief of
people. But I saw it clearly as the Lord had opened
it to me, and was satisfied and admired the goodness
of the Lord, who had opened the thing to me this

morning So that which opened in me struck I saw

at the priests’ministry. But my relations were much
troubfed that I would not go witii them to hear the
priest; for I would go into the orchard or the fields
with my Bible by myself. . . . saw that to be a true
believer was another thing than they looked upon
it to be . . . so neither them nor any of the dis-
senting i)eople could I join with.

‘At another time itwas opened in me, “ThatGod
who made the world did not dwell in temples made
with hands.” This at the first seemed strange, be-
cause both priests and people used to call their
temples or churches dreadful places, holy ground and
the temples of God. But the Lord showed me clearly
that He did not dwell in these temples which men
had made, but in people’s hearts.’

In this way George Fox had found out for him-
self three of the foundation truths of a pure faith: —

ist. That all Christians are believers, Protest-
ants and Papists alike.

2nd. That Christ was come to teach His people
Himself,

3rd. That the Temple in which God wishes to
dwell is in the hearts of His children.
Now thatt^eorge Fox was sure of these three things,
it troubled him less if he was with people whose
beliefs he could not share.

• The firgt set of people he came among believed

SI

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

that women had no souls, * no more than a goose
has a soul * added one of them in a light, jesting
tone. George Fox reprove^d them and told them it
was a wrong thing to say, and added that Mary in
her song said, ‘ My soul doth magnify the Lord,
My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,’ so she
must have had a soul. George by this time had
learned to know his Bible so well in the long quiet
hours out of doors, when it had been his only com-
panion, that it was easy to him to find the exact quot-
ation he wanted in an argument. It was said of
him, later on, by wise and learned men, that if the
Bible itself were ever to be lost it might almost be
found again in the mouth of George Fox, so well
did he know it.

The next set of people he came to were great
dreamers. They guided their lives in the daytime
according to the dreams they had happened to dream
during the night. And I should think a fine mess
they must have made of things ! George helped these
dreamers to know more of realities, till, later on,
many of them came out of their dream-world and
became Friends.

After this at last he came upon a set of people who
really did seem to understand him and to care for
the same things that he did. They were called
‘ Shattered Baptists,’ because they had broken off
from the other Baptists in the neighbourhood who
‘ did the Lord’s work negligently ’ and did not act
up to what they professed. This was the*" very same
fault that had driven George forth from among the
professors at the beginning of his long quest. It is
easy to imagine that he and these people were happy

52

‘PURE FOY, MA JO YE’

together. ‘With these/ he says, ‘I had some meet-
ings and discourses, ‘but my troubles continued and
I was often under great temptations. I fasted much,
walked abroad in solitary places many days, and often
took my Bible and sat in hollow trees and lonesome
places till night came on, and frequently in the night
walked about by myself. . . . O the everlasting love
of Gq0 to my soul, when I was in great distress ! when
my troubles and tonnenis were great, then was His
love exce eding great. . . . When ail my hopes in all
men were gone so thnt I had nothing outwardly to
help me„ nor could I tdl what to do, then, O then,
I heard a Voice which said, “There is one, even Christ
Jesus, that can speaR to thy condition.” When I
heard it, my heart did leap for joy.’

This message was like the rising of the sun to
George Fox. The long night of darkness was over
now, the sun had risen, and though there might be
clouds and storms ahead of him still he had come
out into the full clear light of day.

‘My desires after the Lord grew stronger,’ he
writes, ‘and zeal in the pure knowledge of God and
of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book,
or writing. . . . Then the Lord gently led me along
and let me see His love which was endless and
eternal, surpassing all the knowledge that men have
in the natural state or can get by history and books.
That love let me see myself as I was without him. . . .
At another time I saw the great love of God, and
was filled with admiration at the infiniteness of it.’

The truths that George Fox is trying to express
are difficult to 'put into words. It is the more
difficult for us to understand what he means because

53

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

his language is not quite the same as ours. Other
words besides ‘priest* and ‘professor* have altered
their meanings. When he speaks of having had
things ‘ opened ’ to him, we should be more likely
to say he had had them revealed to him, or had
had a revelation. Perhaps these ‘openings* and
‘seeings’ that he describes, though they meant much
to him, do not sound to us now like very great
discoveries. They are only what we have been
accustomed to hear all our lives. But then, whom
have we to thank for that? In large measure George
Fox himself.

In the immense bush forests that cover an un-
explored country or continent the first man who
attempts to make a track through them has the
hardest task. He has to guess the right direction,
to cut down the first trees, to ‘ blaze a trail,* to help
every one who follows him to find the way a little
more easily. That man is called a Pioneer. George
Fox was a pioneer in the spiritual world. He dis-
covered a true path for himself, a path leading right
through the thick forest of human selfishness and
sin and out into the bright sunshine beyond. In
his lonely Quest through those years of struggle he
was indeed ‘blazing a trail* for us. If the track we
tread nowadays is smooth and easy to tread, that
is because of the pioneers who have gone before
us. Our ease has been gained through their labours
and sufferings and steadfastness.

The track was not fully clear even yet to George
Fox. He had more to learn before he coulcf' make
the right path plain to others; more to learn, but
chiefly more to suffer. To strengthen him before-
54

‘PURE FOY, MA JO YE’

hand for those sufferings, he was given an assurance
that never afterwards entirely left him. ‘ I saw the
Infinite Love of God. I^aw also that there was an
ocean of darkness and death ; but an infinite ocean
of light and love which flowed over the ocean of
darkness. In that also I saw the infinite love ot God,
and I had great openings.’ The Quest was ended.
Faith was pure, and Joy was sure at last.

‘Now was I come up in spirit, through the flaming
sword, into the Paradise of God. All things were
made new, and all the creation gnve another smell
to me beyond wiiat words can utter. I knew nothing
but pureness, innocency,and righteousness, being re-
newed up to the image of God by Christ Jesus. . . .
Great things did the Lord lead me into, and wonder-
ful depths were opened to me, beyond what can by
words be declared ; but as people come into subjec-
tion by the Spirit of God, and grow up in the Image
and Power of the Almighty they may receive the
word of wisdom that opens all things, and come to
know the hidden unity in the Eternal Being.’

‘Thus travelled I in the Lord’s service, as He
led me.*

III. THE ANGEE OF
BEVERLEY

* To instruct young lasses and maid-
ens in whatever things was useful
in the creation ^ — r. abraham,

'‘It was the age of long discourses
and ecstatic exercisesl — morlei’^s

CROMIVELL.

‘ George Fox s preachings ui those
early yearSs chiefly consisted of some
feiVs hut powerful and piercing
words s to those whose hearts were
already m some measure prepared to
be capable of receivi ng this doctrme. ^
SEW Ells HISTORY,

^But at the first convincenmitivhen
friends could not put ojf their hats
to peopks 7ior say you to a particular
but thee and thou; and could not
bo7ve nor use the ivorldls fashions
7ior customs . . . people ivould 7iot
trade icdth them 7ior trust theiii . . .
but afterwards people came to see
friends honesty and truthfulness I
— a. FOX.

‘ The light which shows us our sins
is that which heals us I — g. fox,

'■GOD ivorks sUnvlyl — bishop
WES TOO TT,

III. THE ANGEL OF
BEVERLEY

^MONG all the children of Drayton village
iJL who watched eagerly for the door to open
X jk. into the Purefoy Chapel on Sundays, when
the Squire^s family were at home, none watched
for it ipore intently than blue-eyed Cecily, the old
huntsman’s granddaughter. Cecily’s parents were
both dead, and she lived with her grandfather in
one of the twin lodges that guarded the Planer
gates. Old Thomas haa fought at the Squire’s side
abroad in years gone by. Now, aged and bent,
he, too, watched for that door to open, as he sat
in his accustomed place in the church with Cecily
by his side. Old Thomas’s eyes followed his mas-
ter lovingly, when Colonel Purefoy entered, head-
ing the little procession, — a tall, erect, soldierly-
looking man, though his hair was decidedly grey,
and grey too was the pointed beard that he still wore
over a small ruff, in the fashion of the preceding
reign.

Close behind him came his wife. The village
people spoke of her as ‘Madam,’ since, although
English born, and, indeed, possessed of considerable
property in her own native county of Yorkshire, she
wasattached to the Court of Queen Henrietta Maria,
and had caught something of the foreign grace of her
French mistress.

But it was the two children for whose coming Cecily
waited most eagerly, as they followed their parents.
Edward Purefoy, tlhe heir, a tall, handsome boy, came
in first, leadin'g by the hand his dainty little sister

59

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

J ocosa, who seemed too fairy-like to support the stately
family name, and who was generally known by its
shorter form of Joyce.

Last of all came a portly waiting-maid, carrying a
silky-haired spaniel on a cushion under each arm.
These petted darlings, King Charles’ own special
favourites, were all the rage at Court at this time, and
accompanied their masters and mistresses every-
where, even to church, where — fortunate beings —
they were allowed to slumber peacefully on cushions
at their owners’ feet throughout the long services,
when mere human creatures were obliged at any rate
to endeavour to keep awake.

Cecilyhad no eyes to spare, even for the pet-dogs,
on the eventful Sunday when the Squire and his family
first appeared again at church after an unusually long
absence. For there was little Mistress Jocosa, all
clad in white satin, like a princess in a fairy tale, and
as pretty as a picture. And so the great Court painter,
Sir Anthony Vandyck, must have thought, seeing he
had chosen to paint her portrait and make a picture
of her himself in this same costume, with its stiff,
straight, shining skirt, tight bodice, pointed lace collar,
and close-fitting transparent cap that covered, but
could not hide, the waves of dark crisp hair. When
Cecily discovered that a string of pearls was clasped
round the other little girl’s neck, she gave a long gasp
of delight, a gasp that ended in an irrepressible sigh.
For, a moment later, this dazzling vision, with its
dancing eyes, delicate features, and glowing cheeks,
was lost to sight. All through the remainder of the
service it stayed hidden in the depths of the high
old family pew, whence nothing could l^e seen save
6o

THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY

the top of the Squire's silver head, rising occasion-
ally, like an erratic half moon, over the edge of the
dark oak wood.

Not another glimpse was to be had of the white
satin princess; there was no one to look at but the
ordinary village folk whom Cecily could see every
day of her life; young George Fox, for instance, the
Weaver's son, who was staring straight before him as
usual, paying not ihe smallest heed to the entrance
of all these marvellous beings. Fancy staring at the
marble tomb erected by a long dead Lady Jocosa,
and never even noticing her living namesake of to-
day, with all her sparkles and Hushes ! Truly the
Weaver’s son was a strange lad, as the whole village
knew.

A strange boy indeed, Joyce Purefoy thought in
her turn, as, passing close by him on her way out of
church, she happened to look up and to meet the
steady gaze of the young eyes that were at the same
time so piercing and yet so far away. She could not
see his feature*^, clearly, since the sun, pouring in
through a tall lancet window behind him, dazzled her
eyes. Yet, even through the blurr of light, she felt
the clear look that went straight through and found
the real Joyce lying deep down somewhere, though
hidden beneath all the finery with which she had
hoped to dazzle the village children.

Late that same evening it was no fairy princess
but a contrite little girl who approached her mother’s
side at bed-time.

‘Forgive me, mother mine, I did pick just a few
cherries from the tree above the moat,’ she whispered
hesitatingly ‘ I was hot and they w^ere juicy. Then,

6t

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

vvilcn you and niy father crossed the bridge on our
way to church and asked me had I taken any, I, —
no — I did not exactly forget, but I suppose I disre-
mcmbcrcd, and I said I had not had one.’

‘Jocosa!’ exclaimed her mother sternly: ‘What
Vou a Purefoy and my daughter, yet not to be trusted
to tell the truth! For the cherries, they are a small
matter, I gave you plenty myself later, but to Ke about
even a trifle, it is that, that I mind.’

The little girl hung her head still lower. T know,
she said, ‘it was shameful. Yet, in truth, I did con-
fess at length.’

‘ True,’ answered her mother, ‘and therefore
thou art forgiven, and without a punishment; only
remember thy name and take better heed of thy Pure
Faith another time. What made thee come and tell
me even now ? ’

‘ d’he sight of the broken spear in church,’
stammered tlie little girl. ‘That began it, and then
I partly remembered. . . .’

She got no further. Even to her indulgent mother
(and Madam Purefoy was accounted an unwontedly
tender parent in those days), Joyce could not ex-
plain how it was, that, as the glance from those grave
boyish eyes fell upon her, out of the sunlit window,
her ‘ disremembering ’ became suddenly a weight
too heavy to be borne.

Jocosa Purefoy never forgot that Sunday, or her
childish fault.

The visits of the Squire and his family to the old
Manor House were few and far between. The estates
in Yorkshire that Madam Purefoy had i)roiight td
62

THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY

her husband on her marriage were the children's real
home. It was several years after this before Cecily
saw her fairy princess again. The next glimpse was
even more fleeting than their appearance in church,
just a mere flash at the loJge gates as Jocosa and her
brother cantered past on their way out for a day's
hunting. Old 1 homas, sitting in his arm-chair in
the sun, looked critically and en/iously at the man-
servant who acco/Tjpaniea them. ‘Too young —
too young,’ he muttered. Fis own hunting days
were long past, but he could not bear, even crippled
with rheumatism as he was, that any one but he, who
had taught their father to sit a horse, should ride to
hounds with his children.

Cecily had some envious thoughts too. ‘ I should
like very well to wear a scarlet riding-dress and fur
tippet, and a long red feather in my hat, and go a-
hunting on old Snowball, instead of having to stop
at home and take care of grandfather and mind
the house.’

After she had closed the heavy iron gates with a
clang, .she pressed her nose between the bars and
looked wistfully along the straight road, carried on
its high causeway above the fens, down which the
gay riders were swiftly disappearing.

But, in spite of envious looks, the gaiety of the
day was short-lived. During the very first run,
Snowball put her foot into a rabbit-hole, and almost
came down. ‘ Lamed herself, sure enough,’ said the
man-servant grimly. No more hunting for Snow-
ball that day. The best that could be hoped was that
she might be abl6 to carry her little mistress’s light
weight safely home, at a walking pace, over the few

^3

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

miles that separated them from Drayton. Joyce could
not return alone, and Edward would not desert his
sister, though he could noth-epress a few gloomy re-
marks on the homeward way.

‘To lose such a splendid dry day at this season !
Once the weather breaks and the floods are out, there
will be no leaving the Manor House again for weeks,
save by the causeway over the fens ! *

Thus it was a rather melancholy trio that returned
slowly by the same road over which the ponies’ feet
had scampered gaily an hour or two before.

When the chimneys of Drayton were coming in
sight, a loud ‘ Halloo ’ made the riders look round.
A second fox must have led the hunt back in their direc-
tion after all. Sure enough, a speck of ruddy brown was
to be seen slinking along beneath a haystack in the
distance. Already the hounds were scrambling across
the road after him, while, except for the huntsman,
not a solitary rider was as yet to be seen anywhere.

The temptation was too strong for Edward. The
brush might still be his, if he were quick.

‘We are close at home. You will come to no
harm now, sister, he called. Then, raising his whip,
he was ofl* at a gallop, beckoning peremptorily to the
groom to follow him. Not without a shade of re-
morse for deserting his little mistress, the man-servant
obediently gave Snowball’s bridle to Joyce, and set
spurs to his horse. Then, as he galloped away, he
salved his conscience with the reflection that ‘ after
all, young Master’s neck is in more danger than young
Missie’s, now home is in sight.’

Joyce, left alone, dismounted, in order to lead
Snowball herself on the uneven road across the fenSi
64

THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY

It was difficult to do this satisfactorily, owing to the
pony^s lameness, and 'her long, clinging skirt, over
which she was perpetiialljf tripping. Therefore, look-
ing down over the hedgeless country for someone to
help her, it was with real relief that she caught sight
of a tall youth close at hand, in a pasture where sheep
and cattle were grazing. All her life Joyce was ac-
customed to treat the people she n.et with the airs of
a queen. Therefore, ‘ Hey ! boy,' she called im-
periously, ‘ come and help me ! quick !'

She had to call more than once before the
youth looked up, and when he did, at first he made
no motion in response. Then, seeing that the pony
really was limping badly, and that the little lady was
obviously in difficulty, and was, moreover, a very little
lady still, in spite of her peremptory tones, he changed
his mind. Striding slowly towards her, he rather re-
luctantly closed the book he had been reading, and
placed it in his pocket. Then, without saying a
single word, he put out his hand and taking Snow-
ball’s bridle from Joyce he proceeded to lead the
pony carefully and cleverly over the stones.

The silence remained unbroken fora few minutes :
the lad buried in his own thoughts, grave, earnest
and preoccupied ; the dainty damsel, her skirt held
up now, satisfactorily, on both sides, skipping along,
with glancing footsteps, as she tried to keep up with
her companion’s longer paces, and at the same time
to remember why this tall, silent boy seemed to her
vaguely familiar. She could not see his face, for it
was turned towards Snowball, and Joyce herself
scarcely came up to her companion’s elbow.

They passeci a cottage, set back at some distance
F 65

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

from the road and half hidden by a cherry-tree with
a few late leaves upon it, crimsoned by the first touch
of November frost. A cherry-tree ! The old memory
flashed back in a moment.

‘I know who you are,’ exclaimed Joyce, ‘even
though you don’t speak a word. And I know your
name. Youare Righteous Christer the Weaver’s son,
and you are called George, like my father. You have
grown so big and tall I did not know you at first, but
now I do. Where do you live? ’

The boy pointed in the direction of the cottage
under the cherry-tree. The gentle whirr of the loom
stole through the window as they approached.

‘And I have seen you before,’ Joyce went on, ‘a
long time ago, the last time we were here, on Sunday.
It was in church,’ she concluded triumphantly.

‘ Aye, in yon steeple-house,’ answered her com-
panion moodily, and with no show of interest. ‘Very
like.’ His eyes wandered from the thatched roof of
the cottage to where, high above the tall old yew-trees,
a slender spire pointed heavenward.

Joyce laughed at the unfamiliar word. ‘ That is
a church, not a steeple-house,’ she corrected. ‘ Of
course it has a steeple, but wherefore give it such a
clumsy name?’

Her companion made no reply. He seemed ab-
sorbed in a world of his own, though still leading the
pony carefully.

Joyce, piqued at having her presence ignored even
by a village lad, determined to arouse him. ‘ More-
over, I have heard Priest Stephens speak of you to
my father,’ she went on, with a little pin-prick of
emphasis on each word, though addressing her re-
66

THE ANGEE OF BEVERLEY

marks apparently to no one in particular, and with
her dainty head tilted m the air.

Her companion turn^ to her at once. ‘ What
said the Priest ? * he enquired quickly.

‘The Priest said, “Never was such a plant bred
in England before!'^ What his words meant I know
not — unless he was thinking of the proverb of certain
plantb tjiat grow apace, ^ she added maliciously, look-
ing up with a gleam of fun at the tall figure beside
her. ‘And my father said .. .

Colonel Furefoy^s remark was not destined to
be revealed, for they had reached the tall gateway
by this time. Old Thomas, seeing his little mistress
approaching, accompanied only by the Weaver’s son,
anB with Snowball obviously damaged, had hobbled
to meet them in spite of his rheumatics. Close at
hand was Cecily, brimful of excitement at the sight
of her fairy princess actually stopping at their own
cottage door. The tall youth handed the pony’s
bridle to the old man, and was departing with evident
relief, when a clear, imperious voice stopped him —

‘ Good-bye and good-day to you. Weaver’s son,
and thanks for your aid,” said Jocosa, like a queen
dismissing a subject.

The tall figure looked down upon the patroniz-
ing little lady, as if from a remote height. ‘Mayest
thou verily fare well,’ he said, almost with solemnity,
and then, without removing his hat or making any
gesture of respect, he turned abruptly and was
gone.

‘A strange boy,’ Joyce said to herself a few
minutes later as sHe stood on the stone bridge that
Grossed the moat in front of the Manor House. ‘ I

67

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

did not like him ; in fad I rather disliked him — but
I should like to see him again and find out what he
meant by his “steeple-houfee” and “verily.”'

Cecily, left behind at the Lodge, very happy be-
cause her fairy princess had actually thrown her a
smile as she passed, was still following the distant
figure on the bridge with wistful eyes, as Joyce busily
searched her pockets for a few stray crunabs with
which to feed the swans in the moat. The scarlet
riding -dress, glossy tippet, and scarlet feather in
the big brown hat were all faithfully reflected in the
clear water below, except where the swans inter-
rupted the vivid picture with dazzling snowy curves
and orange webbed feet.

More critical eyes than Cecily's were also watch-
ing Joyce. High up on the terrace, wdiere a few late
roses and asters were still in bloom, two figures were
leaning over the stone parapet, looking down over
the moat. ‘A fair maiden, indeed,' a voice was
saying, in low, polished tones. The next moment
the sound of her own name made the girl look up.
There, coming towards her, at the very top of the
flight of shallow stone steps that led from the terrace
to the low stone bridge, she saw her father, and with
him a stranger, dressed, not like Colonel Purefoy,
in a slightly archaic costume, but in the very latest
fashion of King Charles's Court at Whitehall.

‘My father come home already! and a stranger
with him! What an unlucky chance after the mis-
adventure of the morning!'

Throwing her remaining crumbs over the swans
in a swift shower, Joyce made haste up the stone
steps, to greet the two gentlemen with the reverence
68

THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY

always paid by children to their elders in those days.

Somewhat to her surprise, her father lient down
and kissed her check. *Then, taking her hand, he
led her towards the stranger, and presented her very
gravely.^ 'My daughter, Jocosa : my good friend,
Sir Everard Danvers.^ ' Exactly as if I had been
a grown-up lady at Court,* thought Joyce, delighted,
with tihe delight of thirteen, at her own unexpected
importance. Her father had never paid her so much
attention before Well, at least he should see that
she was worthy of it nuw. And Joyce dropped her
lowest, niost formal, curtsey, as the stranger bowed
low over her hand To curtsey at the edge of a
flight of steps, and in a clinging riding skirt, was an
accomplishment of which anyone might be proud.
Was the stranger properly impressed ? He appeared
grave enough, anyhow, anda very splendid figure in his
suit of sky-blue satin, short shoulder cape, and pointed
lace collar. He was a strikingly handsome man,
of a dark-olive complexion, with good features, and
jet-black hair; but strangely enough, the sight of
him made Joyce turn back to her father, feeling as if
she had never understood before the comfort of his
quiet, familiar face. Even the old-fashioned ruff
gave her a sense of home and security. She would
tell him about the morning’s disasters now after all.
But Colonel Purefoy^s questions came first. 'How
now, Jocosa, and wherefore alone ? My daughter
rides with her brother in my absence,' he added,
turning tO his companion.

‘Father, — Snowball, . . began Joyce bravely,
her colour rising as she spoke.

* Talkyiot of snowballs,’ interrupted Sir Everard

69

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

gallantly, may be November by the calendar, but
here it is high summer yet, with roses all abloom.’
He pointed to hej crimsoning cheeks.

They quickly flushed a deeper crimson, evidently
to the stranger’s amusement. ‘Why here comes
Maiden’s Blush, Queen of all the Roses’ he went
on, in a teasing voice. Then, turning to Colonel
Purefoy, ‘By my faith, Purefoy,’ he said, ‘my«scamp
of a nephew is a lucky dog.’

Joyce’s bewilderment increased. What did it all
mean ? Was he play-acting ? Why did they both
treat her so ? The stranger’s punctilious politeness
had flattered her at first, but, since the mocking tone
stole into his voice she felt that she hated him, and
looked round hoping to escape. Sir Everard was too
quick for her. In that instant he had managed to
possess himself of her hand, and now he was kissing
it with exaggerated homage and deference, yet still
with that mocking smile that seemed to say — ‘Like
it, or like it not, little I care.’

Joyce had often seen people kiss her mother’s
hand, and had thought, as she watched the delight-
ful process, how much she should enjoy it, when her
own turn came. She knew better now : it was not
a delightful process at all, it was simply hateful. A
new Joyce suddenly woke up with in her, a frightened,
angry Joyce, who wanted to run away and hide. All
her new-born dignity vanished in a moment. Scarcely
waiting for her father’s amused permission : ‘There
then, maiden, haste to thy mother: she hai> news for
thee’ — she flew along the terrace and in at the hall
door. As she fled up the oak staircase that led to her
mother’s withdra wing-room, she vainly trif^d to shut*
70

THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY

her ears to the sounds of laughter that floated after
her from the terrace below.

Madam Purefoy was Seated, half hidden behind
her big, upright embroidery framfe, in one of the
recesses formed by the high, deeply mullioned win-
dows. Thin rays of autumn sunshine filled the tapes-
tried room with pale, clear light. There was no
posslb^Jiity of mistaking the colou’-s of the silks that
lay in their varied hues close under her hand. Why,
then, had this skilful embroideress deliberately
threaded her needle with a shade of brilliant blue
silk? Why was she ca’-efully using it to fill in a lady’s
cheek without noticing, apparently, that anything
was wrong ? Yet, at the firs^- sound of Joyce’s light
footfall on the stairs she laid down her needle and
listened, and held out her arms, directly her daughter
a|)peared, flushed and agitated, in the doorway, wait-
ing for permission to enter.

Mothers were mothers, it seems, even in the seven-
teenth century. In another minute Joyce was in her
arms, pouring out the whole history of the morning.
By this time Snowball's lameness had faded behind
the remembrance of the encounter on the terrace.

^ Who is that man, mother? A courtier, I know,
since he wears such beautiful clothes. But where-
fore comes he here ? I thought I liked him, until
he kissed my hand and laughed at me, and then I
detested him. I hope I shall never see him again.’
And she hid her face.

Before speaking. Mistress Purefoy left her seat
and carefully closed the casement, in order that their
voices might nof reach the ears of anyone on the
.terrace below. Then, taking Joyce on her knee as

71

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

if she had been still a child, she explained to her that
the stranger, Sir Everard Danvers, was a well-known
and favourite attendant oi the Queen^s. ‘ And it is
by her wish that ht comes hither for thee, Mignonne/

‘For me?* Joyce grew rosier than ever ; ‘I am too
young yet to be a Maid of Honour as thou wert in thy
girlhood. What does her Majesty know about me?*
she questioned. ^

‘Only that thou art my daughter, and that she
is my very good friend. Her Majesty knows also
that, in time, thou wilt inherit some of my Yorkshire
estates ; and therefore she hath sent Sir Everard to
demand thy hand in marriage for his nephew and
ward, the young Viscount Danvers, whose property
marches with ours. Moreover, seeing that the times
are unsettled, her Majesty hath signified her pleasure
that not a mere betrothal, but the marriage ceremony
itself, shall take place as soon as possible in the Chapel
Royal at St. James’s, since the young Viscount, thy
husband to be, is attached to her suite as a page.’

‘But I am not fourteen yet,’ faltered Joyce, ^‘*tis
full soon to be wed.* A vista of endless court curtseys
and endless mocking strangers swam before her eyes,
and prevented her being elated with the prospect
that would otherwise have appeared so dazzling.

Her mother stifled a sigh. ‘Aye truly,’ she replied,
‘thy father and I have both urged that. But her
Majesty hath never forgotten the French fashion of
youthful marriages, and is bent on the scheme. She
says, with truth, that thou must needs have a year or
two’s education after thy marriage for the position
thou wilt have in future to fill at Court, and ’tis better
to have the contract settled first,*

72

THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY

Education ! To be married at thirteen might be a
glorious thing, but to*be sent back, a bride, for a year
or two of education thereafter was^a dismal prospect.

That night there were tears of excitement and
dismay on the pillow of the Viscountess-to-be as she
thought of the alarming future. Yet she woke up,
laughing, in the morning sunlight, for she had dreamt
that she was fastening a coronet over her brown hair.

The wedding festivities a few weeks later left
nothing to be desired. Day after day Joyce found
herself the caressed centre of a brilliant throng that
held but one disappointing figure — he^ boy bride-
groom. ‘ He has eyes like a weasel, and a nose like
a ferret,’ was the bride’s secret ciiticism, when the
introduction took place. But, after all, the bride-
groom was one of the least important parts of the
wedding: far less important than the Prince of Wales,
who led her out to dance, and whom she much pre-
ferred: far less important also than the bridegroom’s
cousin, Abigail, a bold, black-eyed girl who took
country-bred Joyce under her protection at once,
and saved her from many a mistake. Abigail was
already at the school to which Joyce was to be sent,
She herself was betrothed, though not as yet married,
to my Lord Darcy, and was therefore able to instruct
Joyce herself in many of the needful accomplish-
ments of her new position.

The school days that followed were not unhappy
ones, since* far better than their books, both girls
loved their embroidery work and other ‘curious and
ingenious manufactures,’ especially the new and
fashionable employment of making samplers, which

73

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

had just been introduced. But when, in a short
time, the Civil Wars broke out, their peaceful world
collapsed like a house ol cards. The * position ’
of the young Viscountess and her husband vanished
into thin air. One winter at Court the young couple
spent together, it is true, when the King and Queen
were in Oxford, keeping state that was like a faint
echo of Whitehall. <

All too soon the fighting began again. In one of
the earliest battles young Lord Danvers was severely
wounded and sent home maimed for life. His days
at Court and camp were over. Summoning his wife
to nurse him, he returned to his estate near Beverley
in Yorkshire, where the next few years of Joyce’s
life were spent, to her ill-concealed displeasure.

Her husband’s days were evidently numbered,
and as he grew weaker, he grew more exacting.
Patience had never been one of Joyce’s strong points,
and, though she did her best, time often dragged,
and she mourned the cruel fate that had cast her
lot in such an unquiet age. Instead of wearing her
coronet at Court, here she was moping and mewed
up in a stiff, puritanical countryside.

After the triumph of the Parliamentarians, things
grew worse. It would have gone hard with the young
couple had not a neighbour of theirs, of much in-
fluence with the Protector, one Justice Hotham,
made representations as to the young lord’s dying
state and so ensured their being left unmolested.

Justice Hotham was a fatherly old man with a
genius for understanding his neighbours, especially
young people. He was a good friend to Joyce, and
perpetually urged her to cherish her hqsband while

74

THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY

he remained with her. Judge then of the good
Justice’s distress, when, ^one fine day, a note was
brought to him from his wilful neighbour to say that
she could bear her lot no longer, that her dear friend
Abigail, Lady Darcy, was now on her way to join
the Queen in France, and had persuaded Joyce to
leave her husband and accompany her thither.

The* Justice looked up m dismay: a dismay re-
flected on the face of the waiting-woman to whom
Joyce had entrusted her confidential letter. This
was a certain blue-eyed Cecily, now a tall and comely
maiden, who had followed her mistress from her old
home at Dray ton-in the-Clay.

‘She must be stopped,’ said the good Judge.
‘Spending the night with Lady Darcy a^ the Inn at
Beverley is she, sayest thou ? And thou art to join
her there ? Hie thee after her then, and delay her
at all costs. Plague on this gouty foot that ties me
here ! Maiden, I trust in thee to bring her home.’

Cecily needed no second bidding. ‘She will not
heed me. No mortal man or woman can hinder
my lady, once her mind is made up. Still I will do
my best,’ was her only answer to the Judge ; while
‘It would take an angel to stop her! May Heaven
find one to do the work and send her home, or ever
my lord finds out that she has forsaken him,’ she
prayed in the depths of her faithful heart.

Was it in answer to her prayer that the rain came
down in such torrents that for two days the roads
were impassable ? Cecily was inclined to think so
Anyhow, Joyce and Abigail, growing tired of the
stuffy inn parlour while the torrents descended, and
having noticing to do, seeing that the day was the

75

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Sabbath, and therefore scrupulously observed with-
out doors in Puritan Beverley, strolled through the
Minster, meaning to make sport of the congregation
and its ways thereafter. The sermon was long and
tedious, but it was nearing its end as they entered.
At the close a stranger rose to speak in the body of
the Church, a tall stranger, who stood in the rays of
the sun that streamed through a lancet window be-
hind him. His first words arrested careless Joyce,
though she paid small heed to preaching as a rule.

More than the words, something vaguely familiar
in the tones of the voice and the piercing gaze that
fell upon her out of the flood of sunlight, awoke in
her the memory of that long ago Sunday of her child-
hood, of her theft of the cherries, of her ‘ disre-
membering,’ and then of her mother’s words, ‘You,
a Purefoy, to forget to be worthy of your name.^

Alas! where was her Pure Faith now ? The preacher
seemed to be speaking to her, to her alone : yet,
strangely enough, to almost every heart in that vast
congregation the message went home. Did the build-
ing itself rock and shake as if filled with power? The
real Joyce was reached again: the real Joyce, though
hidden now under theweightof years of self-pleasing,
a heavier burden than any childish finery. Certainly
reached she was, though Lady Darcy preserved
through it all her cynical smile, and made sport of
her friend’s earnestness. Nevertheless Lady Darcy
went to France alone. Lady Danvers returned
to her husband — too much accustomed to be left
alone, poor man, to have been seriously disquieted
by her absence. For the remainder of his short
life his wife did her best to tend him dvtifuily. But
76

THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY

she did leave him for an hour or two th'^ day after
her return, in order to go and throw herself on her
knees beside kind old Justice Hotham, and confess
to him how nearly she had deserted her post.

‘And then what saved you?’ enquired the wise
old man, smoothing back the wavy hair from the
wilful, lovely face that looked up to him, pleading
for forgiveness.

‘I think it was an angel,’ said Joyce simply —
‘an angel or a spirit. It rose up m Beverley Minster :
it preached to us of the wonderful ♦:hing3 of God;
words that burned. I'he whole building shook.
Afterwards it passed away.’

Little she guessed that George Fox, the Weaver’s
son, the J udge’s guest, seated in a deep recess of the
long, panelled library, was obliged to listen to every
word she spoke. Joyce never knew that the angel
who had again enabled her to keep her ‘Faith pure’
was no stranger to her. Neither did it occur to him,
whose thoughts were ever full of weightier matters
than wilful woman’s ways, that he had met this ‘great
woman of Beverley,’ as he calls her, long before.

Only waiting-maid Cecily, who had prayed for
an angel; Cecily, who had recognised the Weaver’s
son the first moment she saw him at the inn door ;
Cecily who had found in him, also, the messenger
sent by God in answer to her prayer — wise Cecily
kept silence until the day of her death.

George Fox says in his Journal:

‘I was moved of the Lord to go to Beverley steeple-
house, which was a place of high profession. Being
very wet wjth rain, I went first to an inn. As soon

77

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

as I came to the door, a young woman of the house
said, “What, is it you? Come in,’’ as if she had known
me before, for the Lord’s power bowed their hearts.
So I refreshed myself and went to bed. In the morn-
ing, my clothes being still wet, I got ready, and, having
paid for what I had, went up to the steeple-house
where was a man preaching. When he had done, I
was moved to speak to him and to the peopks in the
mighty power of God, and turned them to their
teacher, Christ Jesus. The power of the Lord was so
strong that it struck a mighty dread among the people.
The Mayor came and spoke a few words to me, but
none had power to meddle with me, so I passed out
of the town, and the next day went to Justice Hoth-
am’s. He was a pretty tender man and had some ex-
perience of God’s workings in his heart. After some
discourse with him of the things of God he took me
into his closet, where, sitting together, he told me he
had known thatprinciple these ten years, andwasglad
that the Lord did now send his servants to publish
it abroad among the people. While I was there a
great woman of Beverley came to Justice Hotham
about some busin'ess. In discourse she told him that
“The last Sabbath day,” as she called it, “an Angel
or Spirit came into the church at Beverley and spoke
the wonderful things of God, to the astonishment of
all that were there : and when it had done, it passed
away, and they did not know whence it came or whither
it went ; but it astonished all, priests, professors and
magistrates.” This relation Justice Hotham gaveme
afterwards, and then I gave him an account that I
had been that day at Beverley steeple-house and
had declared truth to the priest and people there.’ '
78

IV TAMING THE
TIGER

state of the English law in the
I ^ih century with regard to prisons
was worthy of Looking Glass Land.
The magistrates^ i^esponsibility was
defined by... the justice. ^ ‘ They were
to commit them to prison but not
to provide prisons for the^nl^ This
duty devolved upoti the gaoler, who
was an autocrat and responsible to
no authority. Itfrequentlyhappened
that he 7 vas a convicted bra?tded
felon, chosen for the position by
reason of his strength 6^ brutality.
Prisoners were . . . required to pay
for this enforced hospitality, 6^ their
first act nmst be to make the most
favourable terms possible with their
gaoler landlord or his wife, for food
6^ lodging^ M. R. BRAILSFORD.

‘ You are bidden to fight with your
own selves, with your 07 ifn desires,
zvithyour own affections, zvith your
own reason,andwithyourown will;
and therefore if you will find your
enemies, never look without. , . ,
You must expect to fight a great
battle. \ — JOHN EVERARD. 1 6 5 o.

^The real essential battlefield is al-
ways in the heart itself. It is the
victory over ourselves, over the evil
within, which alone enables us to
gain any real victory over the evil
without I E. R. CHARLES.

‘ They who defend war, must defend
the dispositions that lead to war,
and these are clean against the
gospel. ’ — ERA SM us.

IV TAMING THE
TIGER

P erhaps some boys and girls Lave said
many times since ♦he War began: ‘I wish
Friends did not think it wrong to fight for
their King and Country. Why did George Fox forbid
Quakers to fight for the Right like other brave men?
Is it not right to fight for our own dear England?’

But did George Fox ever forbid other people to
fight? He was not in the habit of laying down rules
for other people, even his own followers. Let us see
what he himself did when, as a young man, he was
faced with this very same difficulty, or an even more
perplexing one, since it was our own dear England
itself in those days that was tossed and torn with
Civil War.

First of all, listen to the story of a man who tamed
a Tiger: —

Far away in India, a savage, hungry Tiger, with
stealthy steps and a yellow, striped skin, came
padding into a defenceless native village, to seek for
prey. In the early morning he had slunk out of the
Jungle, with soft, cushioned paws that showed no
signs of the fierce nails they concealed. All through
the long, hot day he had lain hidden in the thick reeds
by the riverside ; but at sunset he grew hungry, and
sprang, with a great bound, up from his hiding-
place. Right into the village itself he came, tramp-
ling down tlie patches of young, green corn that the
villagers had sown, and that were just beginning to
spring up, fresh and green, around the mud walls of
their homes. All the villagers fled away in terror at
G 8t

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

the first glimpse of the yellow, striped sl<jin. The
fathers and mothers snatched up their brown babies,
the older children ran in<# front screaming, ‘Tiger!
Tiger!’ Young and old they all fled away, as fast
as ever they could, into the safest hiding-places near
at hand.

One man alone, a Stranger, did not fly. He re-
mained standing right in the middle of the Tiger’s
path, and fearlessly faced the savage beast. ' With a
howl of rage, the I'iger prepared for a spring. The
man showed no sign of fear. He never moved a
muscle. Not an eyelash quivered. Such unusual
behaviour ' puzzled the Tiger. What could this
strange thing be, that stood quite still in the middle
of the path? It could hardly be a man. Men were
always terrified of tigers, and fled screaming when
they approached. The Tiger actually stopped short
in its spring, to gaze upon this perplexing, motionless
Being who knew no fear. There he stood, perfectly
silent, perfectly calm, gazing back at the Tiger with
the look of a conqueror. Several long, heavy
minutes passed. At length the villagers, peeping out
from their hiding-places, looking between the broad
plantain leaves or through the chinks of their wooden
huts, beheld a miracle. They saw, to their amaze-
ment, the Tiger slink off, sullen and baffled, to the
jungle, while the Stranger remained alone and un-
harmed in possession of the path. At first they
scarcely dared to believe their eyes. It was only
gradually, as they saw that the Tiger had really de-
parted not to return, that they ventured to creep
back, by twos and threes first of all, and then in little
timid groups, to where the Stranger stood. Then
8 ;^

TAMING THE TIGER

they fell at his feet and embraced his knees and wor-
shipped him, almost as if he had been a god. ‘Tell
us your Magic, Sahib, ^ they cried, ‘this mighty
magic, whereby you have managed to overcome the
Monarch of the Jungle and 'ame him to jmur will.*

‘I know no magic,’ answered the Stranger, ‘I
used no spells. I was able to overcome this savage
Tiger only because I have already learned how to
overcome and tame the tiger in my own heart.’

That w^as his secret. That is the story. And
now let us return to George Fox.

Think of the England he lived in when he was a
young man, the distracted England of the Civil
Wars. Think of all the tiger spirits of hatred that
had been unloosed and that were trampling the
land. The whole country lay torn and bleeding.
Some bad men there were on both sides certainly;
but the real misery was that many good men on
each side were trying to kill and maim one another,
in order that the cause they believed to be ‘the Right’
might triumph.

‘Have at you lor the King!’ cried the Cavaliers,
and rushed into the fiercest battle with a smile.

‘God with us I’ shouted back the deep-voiced
Puritans. ‘For God and the Liberties of England I’
and they too laid down their lives gladly.

Far away from all the hurly-burly, though in the
very middle of the clash of arms, George Fox, the
unknown Leicestershire shepherd lad, went on his
way, unheeded and unheeding. He, too, had to
fight; but his was a lonely battle, in the silence of his
own heart. It was' there that he fought and con-
quered first of all, there that he tamed his own Tiger

83

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

at last — more than that, he learned to find God.

‘One day,’ he says in his ‘Journal, ‘when I had
been walking solitarily abroad and was come home,
I was taken up into the love of God, and it was
opened to me by the eternal light and power, and I
therein clearly saw that all was to be done in and by
Christ, and how He conquers and destroys the Devil
and all his works and is atop of him. * He means that
he saw that all the outward fighting was really part
of one great battle, and that to be on the right side
in that fight is the thing that matters eternally to
every man.

Another time he writes: ‘I saw into that which
was without end, things which cannot be uttered and
of the greatness and infiniteness of the love of God,
which cannot be expressed by words, for I had been
brought through the very ocean of darkness and
death, and through and over the power of Satan by
the eternal glorious power of Christ; even through
that darkness was I brought which covered over all
the world and shut up all in the death. . . . And I saw
the harvest white and the seed of God lying thick in
the ground, as ever did wheat that was sown out-
wardly, and I mourned that there was none to
gather it.’

When George Fox speaks of the ‘seed,’ he
means the tender spot that there must always be in
the hearts of all men, however wicked, since they are
made in the likeness of God. A tiny, tiny some-
thing, the first stirring of life, that God’s Spirit can
find and work on, however deeply it may be buried
(like a seed under heavy clods of earth), if men will
only yield to It. In another place he calls this seed

84

TAMING THE TIGER

‘that OB GOD WITHIN You/ And it is this tender
growing ‘seed^ that gets tjampled down when fierce
angry passions are unloosed in people's hearts, just
as the tender springing corn in the Indian village was
trampled down by the hungry Tiger. George Fox
believed that that seed lay hidden in the hearts of all
men, because he had found it in his own. Every-
where he longed to set that seed free to grow, and to
tame the Tiger spirits that would trample it down
and destroy it. Let us watch and see how he did this.

One day when he was about tv/enty-five years
old, he heard that some people had been put in
prison at Coventry for the sake of their religion. He
thought that there must be a good crop of seed in the
hearts of those people, since they were willing to
suffer for their faith, so he determined to go and
see them. As he was on his way to the gaol a
message came to him from God. He seemed to
hear God’s own Voice saying to him, ‘my love

WAS ALWAYS TO THEE, AND THOU ART IN MY LOVE.’

‘Always to thee.’ Then that love had always been
round him, even in his loneliest struggles, and now
that he knew that he was in it, nothing could really
hurt him. No wonder that he walked on towards
the gaol with a feeling of new joy and strength. But
when he came to the dark, frowning prison where
numbers of men and women were lying in sin and
misery, this joyfulness left him. He says, ‘A great
power of darkness struck at me.’ The prisoners
were not the sort of people he had hoped to find
them. They were a set of what were then called
‘Ranters.’ T,hey began to swear and to say wicked
things agakist God. George Fox sat silent among

8s

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

them, still fastening his mind on the thought of
God’s conquering love; but as they went on to
say yet wilder and more wicked things, at last that
very love forced him to reprove them. They paid
no attention, and at length Fox was obliged to leave
them. He says he was ‘greatly grieved, yet I admired
the goodness of the Lord in appearing so to me,
before I went among them.’ ^

For the time it did seem as if the Tiger spirits
had won, and were able to trample down the living
seed. But wait! A little while after, one of these
same prisoners, named Joseph Salmon, wrote a
paper confessing that he was sorry for what he had
said and done, whereupon they were all set at liberty.

Meanwhile, George Fox went on his way, and
travelled through ‘ markets, fairs, and divers places,
and saw death and darkness everywhere, where the
Lord had not shaken them.’ In one place he
heard that a great man lay dying and that his re-
covery was despaired of by all the doctors. Some of
his friends in the town desired George Fox to visit
the sufferer. ‘I went up to him in his chamber,’ says
Fox in his Journal, ‘and spake the word of life to
him, and was moved to pray by him, and the Lord
was entreated and restored him to health. When I
was come down the stairs into a lower room and
was speaking to the servants, a serving-man of his
came raving out of another room, with a naked rapier
in his hand, and set it just to my side. I looked
steadfastly on him and said “Alack for®thee, poor
creature! what wilt thou do with thy carnal weapon,
it is no more to me than a straw.” The standers-by
were much troubled, and he went away, in a rage;
86

TAMING THE TIGER

but when news came of it to his master, he turned
him out of his service/

Although that particular man’s Tiger spirit had
been foiled in its spring, the man himselt had not
been really tamed. Perhaps George Fox needed to
learn more, and to suffer more himself, before he
could really change other men’s hearts. If so, he
had not long to wait.

Shortly after this, it was his own turn to be im-
prisoned. He was shut up in Derby Gaol, and given
into the charge of a very cruel Gaoler. This man was a
strict Puritan, and he liated Fox, and spoke wickedly
against him. He even refused him permission to
go and preach to the people of the town, which,
strangely enough, the prisoners in those days were
allowed to do.

One morning, however, Fox was walking up and
down in his cell, when he heard a doleful noise. He
stopped his walk to listen. Through the wall he
could hear the voice of the Gaoler speaking to his
wife — ‘Wife,’ he said, ‘I have had a dream. I
saw the Day of Judgment, and I saw George there!’
How the listener must have wondered what was
coming! ‘I saw George there,’ the Gaoler con-
tinued, ‘and I was afraid of him, because I had done
him so much wrong, and spoken so much against
him to the ministers and professors, and co the J ustices
and in taverns and alehouses.’ But there the voice
stopped, and the prisoner heard no more. When
evening ca*me, however, the Gaoler visited the cell,
no longer raging and storming at his prisoner, but
humbled and^stilf. ‘ I have been as a lion against
you,’ he s^d to Fox, ‘ but now I come like a lamb,

87

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

or like the Gaoler that came to Paul and Silas, tremb-
ling/ He came to ask as a favour that he might
spend the night in the same prison chamber where
Fox lay. Fox answered that he was in the Gaoler’s
power : the keeper of the prison of course could sleep
in any place he chose. ‘No,’ answered the Gaoler,
‘I wish to have your permission. I should like to
have you always with me, but not as my prisoner.’
So the two strange companions spent that night
together lying side by side. In the quiet hours of
darkness the Gaoler told Fox all that was in his heart.
‘I have found that what you said of the true faith and
hope is really true, and I want you to know that even
before I had that terrible vision, whenever I refused
to let you go and preach, I was sorry afterwards
when I had treated you roughly, and I had great
trouble of mind.’

There had been a little seed of kindness even
in this rough Gaoler’s heart. Deeply buried though
it was, it had been growing in the darkness all the
time, though no one guessed it — the Gaoler himself
perhaps least of all until his dream showed him the
truth about himself. When the night was over and
morning light had come, the Gaoler was determined
to do all he could to help his new friend. He went
straight to the Justices and told them that he and all
his household had been plagued because of what
they had done to George Fox the prisoner.

‘Well, we have been plagued too for having him
put in prison,’ answered one of the Justices, whose
name was Justice Bennett. And here we must wait a
minute, for it is interesting to know that it was this same
Justice Bennett who first gave the name Qf Quakers^
88

TAMING THE TIGER

to George Fox and his followers as a nickname, tc
make fun of them, fox ^declared in his preaching
that ‘all men should tremble at the word of the
Lord,’ whereupon the Justice laughingly said that
‘Quakers and Tremolers was the name for such
people.* The Justice might have been much sur-
prised if he could have known that centuries after,
thousarvis of people all over the world would still
be proud to call themselves by the name he had given
in a moment of mockery.

Neither Justice Bennett nor his prisoner could
guess this, however ; and therefore, although his
Gaoler’s heart had been changed, George Fox still
lay in Derby Prison. There was more w^ork waiting
for him to do ther^.

One day he heard that a soldier wanted to see
him, and in there came a rough trooper, with a story
that he was very anxious to tel! ‘ I was sitting in
Church,’ he began. ‘Thou meanest in the steeple-
house,’ corrected Fox, who w^as always very sure
that a ‘Church’ meant a ‘Company of Christ’s faith-
ful people,’ and that the mere outward building
where they were gathered should only be called a
steeple-house if it had a steeple, or a meeting-house
if it had none. ‘ Sitting in Church, listening to the
Priest,’ continued the trooper, paying no attention
to the interruption, ‘ I was in an exceeding great
trouble, thinking over my sins and wondering what
I should do, when a Voice came to me — I believe it
was God’s dwn Voice and it said — “ Dost thou not
know that my servant is in prison ? Go thou to him
for direction.” So 1 obeyed the Voice,’ the man con-
tinued, ‘anjJ here I have come to you, and now I

89

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

want you to tell me what I must do to get rid of the
burden of these sins of miije.’ He was like Christian
in Pilgrim's Progress^ with a load of sins on his back,
was he not ? And just as Christian’s burden rolled
away when he came to the Cross, so the trooper’s
distress vanished when Fox spoke to him, and told
him that the same power that had shown him his sins
and troubled him for them, would also show#.him his
salvation, for * That which shows a man his sin is
the Same that takes it away ! ’

Fox did not speak in vain. The trooper ‘began
to have great understanding of the Lord’s truth and
mercyes.’ He became a bold man too, and took his
new-found happiness straight back to the other
soldiers in his quarters, and told them of the truths
he had learnt in the prison. He even said that their
Colonel — Colonel Barton — was ‘as blind as Nebu-
chadnezzar, to cast such a true servant of God as
Fox was, into Gaol.’

Before long this saying came to Colonel Barton’s
ears, and then there was a fine to do. Naturally he
did not like being compared with Nebuchadnezzar.
Who would ? But it would have been undignified
for a Colonel to take any notice then of the soldiers’
tittle-tattle; so he said nothing, only bided his time and
waited until he could pay back his grudge against
the sergeant. A whole year he waited — then his
chance came. It was at the Battle of Worcester, when
the two armies were lying close together, but before
the actual fighting had begun, that twtf soldiers of
the King’s Army came out and challenged any two
soldiers of the Parliamentary Army to single combat,
whereupon Colonel Barton ordered thq soldier who
90

TAMING THE TIGER

had likened him to Nebuchadnezzar to go with one
other companion on this dangerous errand They
went ; they fought with the two Royalists, artd one of
the two Parliamentarians was killed ; but it was the
other one, not Fox’s friend. He, left alone, with
his comrade lying dead by his side, suddenly found
that not even to save his own life could he kill his
enemiei. So he drove them both before him back
to the town, but he did not hrc off his pistol at them.
Then, as soon as Worcester fig! t was over, he him-
self returned and told the whole tale to Fox. He
told him ‘how the Lord had miraculously preserved
him,’ and said also that now he had ‘seen the
deceit and hypocrisy of the cfticers he had seen also
to the end of Fighting.’ Whereupon he straightway
laid down his arms.

The trooper left the army. Meanwhile his friend
and teacher had suffered for refusing to join it. We
must go back a Jittle to the time, some months before
the Battle of Worcester, when the original term of
Fox’s imprisonment in the House of Correction in
Derby was drawing to a close.

At this time many new soldiers were being raised
for the Parliamentary Army, and among them the
authorities were anxious to include their stalwart
prisoner, George Fox. Accordingly the Gaoler was
asked to bring his charge out to the market-place,
and there, before the assembled Commissioners and
soldiers. Fox was offered a good position in the army
if he would^ take up arms for the Commonwealth
against Charles Stuart. The officers could not under-
stand why Geqrge Fox should refuse to regain his
liberty on wUat seemed to them to be such easy terms.

91

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

‘Surely/ they said, ‘a strong, big-boned man like you
will be not only willing bvt eager to take up arms
against die oppressor and abuser of the liberties of
the people of England ! '

Fox persisted in his refusal. ‘I told them,’
he writes in his Journal, ‘that I knew whence all
wars arose, even from men’s lusts . . . and that I
lived in the virtue of that life and power that took
away the occasion of all wars. Yet they courted me
to accept their offer, and thought I did but compli-
ment them. But I told them I was come into that
covenant of peace which was before wars and strifes
were. They said they offered it in love and kind-
ness to me, because for my virtue, and such like
flattering words they used. But I told them if that
was their love and kindness, I trampled it under my
feet Then their rage got up, and they said, “Take
him away. Gaoler, and put him into the prison among
the rogues and thieves.” ’

This prison was a much worse place than the
House of Correction where Fox had been confined
hitherto. In it he was obliged to remain for a weary
half-year longer, knowing all the time that he might
have been at liberty, could he have consented to
become an officer in the army. His relations, dis-
tressed at his imprisonment, had already offered
;£ioo for his release, but Fox would not accept the
pardon this sum might have obtained for him as he
said he had done nothing wrong. He was occasion-
ally allowed to leave the horrible, dirty gaol, with its
loathsome insects and wicked companions, and walk
for a short time in the garden by himself, because
his keepers knew that when he had given his word
92

TAMING THE TIGER

he would not try to escape from their custody.

As time went on, dismal people (looking on

the gloomy side of things, as dismal peopje always
do) began to shake their heads and say, ‘Poor young
man, he will spend all his l^fe in gaol. Y ou will see
he will never be set free or get his liberty again.*
But Fcx refused to be cast down. Narrow though
his prijon was, Hope shared it with him. ‘I had
faith in God,* his Journal says, ‘that I should be
delivered from that place in the Lord*s time, but not
yet, being set there for a work He had for me to
do!’ Work there was for him in prison truly. A
young woman prisoner who had robbed her master
was sentenced to be hanged, according to the bar-
barous law then in force. This shocked Fox so
much that he wrote letters to her judges and to the
men who were to have been her executioners, ex-
pressing his horror at what was going to happen in
such strong language that he actually softened their
hearts. Although the girl had actually reached the foot
of the gallows, and her grave had already been dug,
she was reprieved. Then, when she was brought back
into prison again after this wonderful escape Fox was
able to pour light and life into her soul, which was
an even greater thing than saving her body from
death. Many other prisoners did Fox help and
comfort in Derby Gaol ;* but though he could soften
the sufferings of others he could not shorten his own.
Once again Justice Bennett sent his men to the
prison, thi« time with orders to take the Quaker by

* Two men who were executed for small offences he could
not save, but ‘ajittle time after they had suffered their spirits
appeared to me as I was walking, and I saw the men was well. ’

93

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

force and compel him to join the army, since he would
not fight of his own free will. ‘

‘But J told him/ said I^bx, ‘“that I was brought
off from outward wars.’’ They came again to give me
press money, but I would take none. Afterwards
the Constables brought me a second time before the
Commissioners, who said I should go for a soldier,
but I said I was dead to it. They said I wa^ alive.
I told them where envy and hatred is, there is con-
fusion. They offered me money twice, but I refused
it. Being disappointed, they were angry, and com-
mitted me a close prisoner, till at length they were
made to turn me out of Gaol about the beginning
of winter 1651, after I had been a prisoner in
Derby almost a year; six months in the House of
Correction, and six months in the common gaol’

Thus at length Derby prison was left behind;
but the seeds that the prisoner had planted in that
dark place sprang up and flourished and bore fruit
long after he had left.

Eleven years later, the very same Gaoler, who
had been cruel to Fox at the first, and had then
had the vision and repented, wrote this letter to his
former prisoner. It is a real Gaoler’s love-letter, and
quite fresh to-day, though it was written nearly 300
years ago.

‘dear friend,’ the letter begins,

‘ Having such a convenient messenger
I could do no less than give thee an acc^'unt of my
present condition; remembering that to the first
awakening of me to a sense of life, God was pleased
to make use of thee as an instrument. * So that some-*

94

TAMING THE TIGER

times I am taken with admiration that it should come
by such means as it did; that is to say that Provi-
dence should order thee to*be my prisoner to j^ive me
my fijst sight of the truth. It makes me think of
the gaoler’s conversion by the apostles. Oh ! happy
George Fox ! that first breathed the breath of life
within the walls of my habitation ! Notwithstanding
that my outward losses are since that time such that
I am become nothing in the world, yet I hope I shall
find that these light afflictions, which are but for a
moment, will work for me a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory. They have taken all from
me; and now instead of keeping a prison, I am
waiting rather when i shall become a prisoner my-
self. Pray for me that my faith fail not, and that I
may hold out to the death, that I may receive a crown
of life. I earnestly desire to hear from thee and of
thy condition, which would very much rejoice me.
Not having else at present, but my kind love to thee
and all friends, in haste, I rest thine in Christ Jesus.

‘THOMAS SHARMAN.

‘Derby, the 22nd of the fourth month, 1662.’

This Gaoler was one of the first people whose
Tiger spirits were tamed by George Fox. But he
certainly was not the last. Fox himself had told the
soldiers in Derby market-place that he could not
fight, because he ‘lived in the virtue of that life and
power that Jook away the occasion of all wars.’ As
a friend of his wrote, after his death many years
later: ‘George was a discerner of other men’s

spirits, AND VERY MUCH A MASTER OF HIS OWN.’

95

V. ‘THE MAN IN
LEATHER RREECHES’

'As I was walking I heard old people
and work people to say: he is such
a man as neverwas^heknowspeopld s
thoughts^^ for I turned them to
the divine light of Christ and His
spirit let them see . . that there was
the first step to peace to stand stilt
in the light that showed them their
sin and transgi^essionl — g, fox.

'Do not look at but keep over all tin-
na turalness^ if any such thing should
appear., but keep in that which was
and is and will be I — G. fox.

' Wait patiently upon the Lord; let
every man that loves God, en-
deavour by the spirit of wisdom.^
meekness., and love to dry up Eu-
phrates, even this spirit of bitter-
ness that like a great river hath
overflowed the earth of via7ikind.
GERRARDWINSTANLEY. I 648.

'Blessedishewho loves Thee, and his
friend in Thee, and his eneiny for Thy

sake.' A UGUSTINE.

'Eternity is just the real world for
which we were made, and which we
enter through the door of love . —

RUFUS M. JONES.

V. ‘THE MAN IN
LEATHER BREECHES’

22nfl iDec. 1651.

R ough MoIIj the worst- tempered woman
in all Yorkshire.’ It was thus her neigh-
" hours were wont to speak behind her back
of Mistress Moli, the keeper of the ‘George and
Dragon’ Inn at Hutton Grans wick near Driffield in
the East Riding, Never a goo I word or a kind
deed had she for anA^one, since her husband nad
been called away to serve in King Charles’s army.

In former days, when mine host was at home, the
neighbours had been encouraged to come early and
stay late at night gossipping over the home-brewed
ale he fetched for them so cheerily; for Moll’s hus-
band was an open-hearted, i)leasant-mannered man,
the very opposite of his shrewish wife. But now,
since his departure for the wars, the neighbours got
to the bottom of their mugs with as little delay as
possible, vowing to themselves in whispers that they
would seek refuge elsewhere another night, since
Moll’s sour looks went near to give a flavour of
vinegar even to the ale she brewed. Thus, as speed-
ily as might be, they escaped from the reach of theii
hostess’s sharp tongue.

But the lasses of the inn, who were kept to do the
rough work of the house, found it harder to escape
from the harsh rule of their mistress. And for little
Jan, Moll’s fohr-y ear-old son, there was still less poss-
ibility of escape from the tyrant whom he called by
the name of Mother,

Nothing true mother-love had ever yet been

99

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

kindled in Rough MolUs heart. From the very be-
ginning she had fiercelji resented beings burdened
with wliat she called ‘ the plague of a brat.’ Still,
so long as his father remained at home, the child's
life had not been an unhappy one. As soon as ever
he could stand alone he drew himself up by his
father’s trousers, with an outstretched hand to be
grasped in the big fist. As soon as he could toddle,
he spent his days wandering round the Inn after his
daddy, knowing that directly he grew tired daddy
would be ready to stop whatever he might be doing,
in order to lift the small boy up in his arms or to
give him a ride on his knee.

‘Wasting your time over the brat and leaving the
Tavern to go to rack and ruin ’ — Moll would say,
with a sneer, as she passed them. But she never
interfered; for the husband who had courted her
when she was a young girl was the only person for
whom she still kept a soft spot in the heart that of
late years seemed to have grown so hard.

Truth to tell, tavern-keeping was no easy business
in those unsettled times, and Moll had ever been a
famous body for worrying over trifles.

The worry cow

Would have lived till now,

If she had not lost her breath,

But she thought her hay
Would not last the day.

So she mooed herself to death.”

‘And all the time she had three sacks full 1 Re-
member that, Moll, my lass ! ’ Jan’s father would say
to his wife, when she began to pour out to him her
dismal forebodings about the future.

But since this easy-going, jolly daddy had left

JOO

MAN IN LEATHEIt BREECHES'

the Inn and had gone away with the other men and
lads of thg village to fight prith My Lord for the King,
little Jan’s lot was a hard one, and seemed 4ikely to
grow harder day by day.

Rbugh Moll’s own life was not too easy either, at'
this time, though few folks troubled themselves to
speculate upon the reason for her added gruffness.
So she epneealed her anxieties unaer an extra harsh-
ness of tongue and did her best to make life a burden
to everyone she came across. For, naturally, now
that the Inn was no longer a pleasant place in mine
host’s absence, it was no longer a profitable place
either. Custom was falling off and quarter day was
fast approaching. Moll was ai her wits’ end to know
where she should ^nd money to pay her rent, when,
one day, to her unspeakable relief, My Lady in her
coach stopped at the door of the Inn. Now Moll
had been dairymaid up at the Hall years ago, before
her marriage, and My Lady knew of old that Moll’s
butter was as sweet as her looks were sour. Perhaps
she guessed, also, at some of the other woman’s
anxieties; for was not* her own husband, My Lord,
away at the wars too ? Anyway, when the fine yellow
coach stopped at the door of the Inn, it was My Lady’s
own head with the golden ringlets that leaned out of
the window, and My Lady’s own soft voice that asked
if her old dairymaid could possibly oblige her with no
less than thirty pounds of butter for her Yuletide feast
to the villagers the following week.

The Mo]*l who came out, smiling and flattered, to
the Inn door and stood there curtseying very low to her
Ladyship, was a diflerent being from the Rough Moll
of.every day^ She promised, with her very smoothest

lOI

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

tongue, she would not fail. She knew where to get
the milk, and her Ladyship should have the butter,
full weight and the very best, by the following evening,
which would leave two full days before Christmas.

‘ That is settled then, for I have never knowh you
to fail me,^ said My Lady, as the coach drove away,
leavingMoll curtseying behind her, and vowingagain
that ‘let come what would come,’ she would not fail.

It was small wonder, therefore, after this unac-
customedgraciousness, that she was shorter-tempered
than ever with her unfortunate guests that evening.
Was not their presence hindering her from getting on
with her task ? At length she left the lasses to serve
the ale, which, truth to tell, they were nothing loath
to do, while Moll herself, in her wooden shoes and
with her skirts tucked up all round her, clattered in
and out of the dairy w'here already a goodly row of
large basins stood full to the brim with rich yellow
milk on which, even now, the cream was fast rising.

Thirty pounds of butter could never all be made
in one day ; she must begin her task overnight. True,
little Jan was whining to go to bed as he tried vainly
to keep awake on his small hard stool by the fire. The
brat must wait; she could not attend to him now. He
could sleep well enough leaning against the bricks of
the chimney-corner. Or, no! the butter-making would
take a long time, and Moll was never a methodical
woman. Jan should lie down, just as he was, and have
a nap in the kitchen until she was ready to attend to
him. Roughly, but not unkindly, she pitlled him off
the stool and laid him down on a rug in a dark corner
of the kitchen and told him to be off to sleep as fast
as he could, stooping to cover him witti^an old coat

T02

MAN IN LEATHER BREECHES

of her husband’s that was hangingon the door, as she
spoke. Nothing loath, j|n shut his sleepy eyes, and,
burying his little nose in the folds of the old coat, he
went happily off into dreamland, soothed by the well-
remembered out-door smed that always dung around
his father’s belongings.

It did not take Moll long to fill the churn and to
set ic in^its place. Just as she was busy shutting down
the lid- there came a knock at the door. ‘ Plague take
you, Stranger,’ she grumbled, as she opened it, and a
gust of snow and wind blew in upon her and die as-
sembled guests in the tavern kitchen. ‘ You bring in
more of the storm than you are likely to pay for your
ale.’

‘ My desire is not for ale,’ saM the Stranger^ speak-
ing slowly, and looking at the woman keenly from
underneath his shaggy eyebrows. * I came but to ask
thee for shelter from the storm: and for a little meat,
if thou hast any to set before me.’

‘ To ask thee for shelter.’ ‘ If thou hast any meat.’
The unusual form of address caught Moll’s ear. She
looked more closely at her visitor. Yes, his lower
limbs were not covered with homely Yorkshire frieze;
they were encased in odd garments that must surely
be made of leather, since the snowflakes lay upon them
in crisp wreaths and wrinkles before they melted. She
had heard of the strange being who was visiting those
parts and she had no desire to make his acquaintance.
‘ Hey, lasses ! ’ she called to her maids at the far end
of the tavern parlour, ‘ here is the man in leather
breeches himself, come to pay us a visit this wild
night!’

A shout ^f laughter went up from the men at their

103

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

tankards. ‘The man in leather breeches ! ’ ‘Send
him out again into the storqg ! We’ll have none of his
company^ihere, the spoil sport ! ’

Moll nodded assent, and returning to her un-
welcome guest, said shortly, ‘ Meat there is none for
you here,’ and moved towards the door, where the
Stranger still stood, as if to close it upon him.

But the man was not to be so easily disgiissed.

‘ Hast thou then milk ? ’ he asked.

Moll laughed aloud. A man who did not want ale
should not have milk; no money to be made out 'of
that; especially this night of all nights, when every
drop would be wanted for her Ladyship’s butter.

Lies were part of Moll’s regular stock-in-trade.
She lied now, with the ease of long habit.

‘ You will get no shelter here,’ she said roughly,
‘and as for milk, there is not a drop in the house.’

The Stranger looked at her. He spoke no words
for a full minute, but as his eyes pierced her through
and through, she knew that he knew that she had lied.
The knowledge made her angry. She repeated her
words with an oath. The Stranger made as if to turn
away; then, almost reluctantly but very tenderly, as
if he were being drawn back in spite of himself; ‘Hast
thou then cream ? ’ he asked. Yet, though his tone
was persuasive, his brows were knitted as he stood
looking down upon the angry woman.

‘ Not as if he cared about the cream, but as if he
cared about me,’ Moll said herself, long after. But
atthetime: ‘No, nor cream either. On my^soul, there
is not a drop in the house, ’she repeated, more fiercely
than before.

But, even as she spoke, she saw tliat th^ Stranger’s

104

MAN IN LEATHER BREECHES

eyes were fastened on the churn that stood behind
her, the churn evidently full and drawn out for use,
with drops of rich yellow cream still standing upon
the lid and trickling down the sides.

Moll turned her square idioulders upon the churn
as if to shut out its witness to her falsehood. Her
lies came thick and fast, ‘I tell you there is not a
single drop of cream in the house. ^

The next moment, a loud crash made her look
round. Slie had forgotten Jan! The loud angry
voice and the cold blast from the open door had
awakened him before he nad had time to get sound
asleep. Hearing his mother vow that she had not a
drop of cream in the house, he left his rug and began
playing about again. Then, being ever a restless
little mortal, he had crept round to the churn to see
if it had really become empty in such a short time.
He had tried to pull himself up by one of the legs in
order to stand on the rim and see if there was really
no cream inside; and in attempting this feat, naturally,
he had pulled the whole churn over upon him. And
not only the churn, — its contents too! Eighteen
quarts of Moll’s richest yellow cream were streaming
all over the kitchen floor. Poois, lakes, rivers, seas
of cream were running over the flagstones and
dripping through the crevices into the ground.

With a cry of rage Moll turned, and, seeing the
damage, she sprang upon little Jan and beat him
soundly; and a beating from Moll’s heavy hand was
no small matter : then with a curse she flung the child
away from her towards the hearth.

‘Woman!’ The Stranger’s voice recalled her.
‘.Woman ! ^Beware ! Thou art full of lies and fury

105

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

and deceit, yet in the name of the Lord I warn thee.

, Ere three days have gone by, ‘thou shalt know what
is in thi^ie heart; and thou shalt learn the pow6r of
that which was, and is, and will be!^

So saying, the unwelcome guest opened the
outer door and walked away into the raging storm
and darkness, — a less bitter storn)|jt seemed to him
now than that created by the violent woman within
doors. Some way further on he espied a haystack,
under which he lay down, as he had done on many
another night before this, and there he slept in the
wind and the snow until morning.

Moll, meanwhile, enraged beyond words at the
loss of her cream, stalked off for a pail and cloth,
and set herself to wash the floor, muttering curses as
she did so. Never a glance did she cast at the
corner by the fire where little Jan still lay by the
hearth-stone, motionless and strangely quiet; he,
the restless imp, who was usuallyso full of life. Never
a glance, until, the centre of the floor being at last
clean again, Moll, on her knees, came with her pail
of soap-suds to the white river that surrounded the
corner of the kitchen where Jan lay. A white river?
Nay, there was a crimson river that mingled with it;
a stream of crimson drops that flowed from the stone
under the child’s head.

Moll leapt to her feet on the instant. What ailed
the boy? She had beaten him, it is true, but then she
had beaten him often before this in his father’s
absence. A beating was nothing new t© little Jan.
Why had he fallen ? What made him lie so still ?
She turned him over. Ah! it was easy to see the
reason. As she flung him from her ‘in her rage, the
io6

MAN IN LEATHER BREECHES

*

child in his fall had struck his head against the sharp
edgp of the hearth-stone, and there he lay now, with
the life blood steadily flowing from his temple.

A feeling that .Rough Moll had never been
conscious of before gripp d her heart at the sight.
Was her boy dead ? Had she killed him ? What
would his father say? What would her husband
call her? A murderer? V/as she that? Was that
what the Stranger Iiad meant when he had looked
at her with those piercing eyes ? He might have
called her a liar, at the sight of the churn full of
cream, but he had not done so; and little she would
have cared if he had. But a murderer! Was murder
in her heart?

Lifting Jan as carefully as she could, she carried
him upstairs to the small bedroom under the roof,
where he usually lay on a tiny pallet by her side. But
this night the child’s small figure lay in the wide bed,
and big Moll, with all her clothes on, hung over him;
or if she lay down for a moment or two, it was only
on the hard little pallet by his side.

All that nighi. Moll watched. But all that night
Jan never moved. All the next day he lay uncon-
scious, while Moll did her clumsy utmost to staunch
the w^oiind in his forehead. Long before it was light,
she tried to send one of her maids for the doctor;
but the storm was now so violent that none could
leave or enter the house.

Her Ladyship’s order went unheeded. The thirty
pounds of butter were never made. But My Lady, who
was a mother herself, not only forgave Moll for spoil-
ing her Yuletide festivities, but even told her, when

she heard of the disaster, that she need not trouble

••

107

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

about the rent until her boy was better.

Until he was better! ^ But would Jan ever be
better ? Moll had no thought now for either the
butter or the rent. The yellow cream might turn
sour in every single one of her pans for all she cared,
if only she could get rid of this new unbearable pain.

At length, on the evening of the second day, faint
with the want of sleep, she fell into an uneasy doze :
and still Jan had neither moved nor stirred. Presently
a faint sound woke her. Was he calling? No; it
was but the Christmas bells ringing across the snow.
What were those bells saying? ‘mur-der-er^ ' mur-
derer* — was that it? Overand over again. Did even
the bells know what she had done and what she
had in her heart ? For a moment black despair
seized her.

The next moment there followed the shuffling
sound of many feet padding through the snow. The
storm had ceased by this time, and all the world was
wrapped in a white silence, broken only by the sound
of the distant bells. And now the Christmas waits
had followed the bells’ music, and were singing carols
outside the ale-hoiise door. Fiercely, Moll stuck
her fingers in her ears. She would not listen, lest
even the waits should sing of her sin, and shew her
the blackness of her heart. But the song stole up
into the room, and, in spite of herself, something
forced Moll to attend to the words :

‘Babe Jesus lay in Mary’s lap,

The sun shone on his hair — »

And that was how she saw, mayhap,

The crown already there.’

That was how good mothers sangto‘their children,,
to8

MAN IN LEATHER BREECHES

They saw crowns upon their hair. What sort of a
croi^n had Moll given tp her child ? She looked
across and saw the chaplet of white bandages lying
on the white pillow. No; she, Moll, had never been
a good mother, would never be one new, unless her
boy came back to life again. She was a murderer,
and her husband when he returned from the wars
would iell hei so, and little Jan would never know
that his mother had a heart after all.

At that moment the carol died away, and the
waits’ feet, heavy with clinging snow, shufled off
into the darkness; but looking down again at the
head v/ith its crown of white bandages upon the
white pillow, Moll saw that this time Jan’s eyes were
open and shining up at her.

‘Mother,’ he said, in his little weak voice, as he
opened his arms and smiled. Moll had seen him
smile like that at his father; she had never known
before that she wanted to share that smile. She
knew it now.

Only three short days had passed since she turned
the Stranger from her doors, but little Jan and his
mother entered a new w^orld of love and tenderness
together that Christmas morning. As Rough Moll
gathered her little son up into her arms and held
him closely to her breast, she knew for the first time
the power of ‘that which was, and is, and will be.’

VI. THE SHEPHERD

OF pendee hill

‘ On Pen die G. F. saw people as thick
as motes in the sun% that should in
time be brought home to the Lord^
thad there might%e butane Shepherd
and one Sheepfold in all the earth.
There his eye was directed North-
ward beholding a great people that
should receive him and his message
in those parish — iv, peniIs Testi-
mony to George Fox,

Pn Adani^ in the fall are all the in-
ward foul 7V€athery storms^ tempests^
winds^ strifes^ the 7vhol€ family of it
is in confusion^ being all gone ffvm
the spirit and witness of God m
thcfnselves^ and the power and the
lights in which power a7td light and
spirit^ is the fellowship with God a7id .
with one another^ through which
theycotne . . . i7itothequickenei\who
awakens {them) and b7'mgs {the77i)
up unto Hwiself the way^ Christ ;
and out of and offf7‘Of7i the teachers
and priests^ and shepherds that
change and fall^ to the priest,

SHEPHERD a7ld PR OP HE T, that
never fell or chafigcd, nor ever ivill
fail or change, nor leave the flock in
tlu cold weather nor in the winter,
nor in stor77ts or t€7np€sts; nor doth
the voice of the wolf frighten hhii
from his flock. For the Light, the
Power, the T7'uth, the Righteous ness,
did it ever leave you in any weather,
or i}t any stortns or te7npests ? A7jd
so his sheep know his voice and follow
Him, who gives them life eternal >
abundantly I — geo roe fox.

VI. THE SHEPHERD
DF PENDLE HI'^L

I NGLEBOROUGH, Pendle and Pen-y-Ghent
Are the highest hills ’twixt Scotland andTrent/
So sing I, the Shepherd of Pendle, to myself,
and so have I sung, on summer days, these many
years, , lyiag out atop of ola Pendie Plill, keeping
watch over my fiock.

In good sooth, a shepherd’s hfe is a hard one,
on our Lancashire fells, for nine months out of the
twelve. The nights begin to be sharp with frost
towards the back-end of the year, for all the days are
sunny and yarm at times. Bhier cold it is in winter
and worse in spring, albeit the daylight is longer.

‘ As thp day lengthens, so the cold strengthens,’
runs the rhyme, and well do men know the truth of
it In these parts. Many a time a man must be ready
to give his own life for his sheep, aye and do it too,
to save them in a snow-drift or from the biting frost.
It is an anxious season for the shepherd, until he sees
the lambs safely at play and able to stand upon their
weak legs and run after their mothers. But it is not
until th^dams are clipped that a shepherd has an easy
mind and, can let his thoughts dwell on other things.
Then^ att^i'st, in the summer, his time runs-gently for
a while; and I, for one, was always ready to enjoy
myself, when once the bitter weather was over.

So there I was, one day many years ago, nigh upon
Midsummer, Jying out on the grassy slopes atop of
old Pendle Hill, and singing to myself —

^Ingleboro^gh,. Pendle and Pen-y-Gbent
• Are the highest hills ’twixt Scotland and Trent.’

I II3

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

But for al I sang of the hills, my thoughts were
in the lall^s. I lay there, watching till the sun
should eaten the steep roof of a certain cot I kndw^
It stands by the side of a stream, so hidden among
the bushes that even my eye cannot find it, unless
the sunlight finds it first, and flashes back at me from
roof and window-pane. That was the cot I had never
lived in then, but I hoped to live in it before the
summer was over, and to bring the bonniest lass in
all yon broad Yorkshire there with me as my bride.
That was to be if things went well with me and with
the sheep; for my master had promised to give me
a full wage (seeing I had now reached man’s estate),
if so be I came through the spring and early summer
without losing a single lamb. Thinking of these
things, and dreaming dreams as a lad will, the hours
trod swiftly over Pendle Hill that day; for all the sun
was going down the sky but slowly, seeing it was
Midsummer-tide.

Suddenly, as I lay there looking down over the
slope, I saw a strange sight, for travellers are scarce
on Pendle Hill even at Midsummer. But it was a tra-
veller surely, or -was it a shepherd? At first I could
not be sure ; for he carried a lamb in his arms and
trod warily with it, in the way that shepherds do.
Yet I never met a shepherd clad in clothes^ like his;
nor with a face like his either, as I saw it, when he
came nearer. Weary he looked, and with a pale
countenance, as if he had much ado to come up the
hill, and in good sooth ’tis full steep |pst there; or
else, may be, he was fasting and faint for lack of food.
But all this I only thought of later. At the time, I
looked not much at him, but only a,t the lamb he

114

^SHEPHERD OF PENDLE HILL

^ carried p his arms. How camafstich a man to be
carrying a lamb, and cariyyig^t full gently and care-
fully too, supporlingonelegwith both hands, although
he wa» encumbered with a staff? Then, when he had
come yet ||^?rer, I saw that it was not only a lamb —
it was oiie of my master’s lambs, my own lambs that
1 was set to watch; for there on its wool was the brand
carrie| bj our flocks and by none others on all those
fells. One of my lambs, lying in a stranger’s arms!
A careless shepherd I ! I must have been asleep or
dreaming . . . dreaming foolish dreams about that
cottage, on which the sun might shineunheeded now,
I cared not for it, being full of other thoughts. No
sooner djd I espy the brand on the lamb than I rose
to my feet, and, even as I ran nimbly down the slope
towards the stranger, my eyes roamed over the hill-
side to discover which of my lambs had strayed: —
Rosamond, Cowslip, Eglantine and Gillyflower — I
could see them all safe with their dams, and many
more besides. All the lambs that springtime I had
named after the flowers that I hoped to plant another
year in the garden of that cot beside the stream. And
all the flowers I could see and name were safe beside
thei/dams, as I leapt down the hillside. Nay, Peri-
winkle was missing ! Periwinkle was ever a strayer,
and Periwinkle’s dam was bleating at the edge of the
steep cliff up which the stranger toiled. It was Peri-
winkle and none other that he was carrying in his
arms I Seeing it was Periwinkle, I halloed to him to
halt. Hearijjg my cry, he stopped, and waited till I
reached him, all the time holding the lamb carefully,
tending it and spedfting to it in the tone a shepherd
is wont to usg.

115

A IPOK ©^' QUAKER SAINTS

‘T jjianks to ycA^ Gdbd Stranger/ 1 said, as I came
hearer, ‘Periwftikle is^^r a's|rayer. Did you see
her fall^^

* Nay,’ said the Stranger, giving the lamb t^derly
into my arms, and halting upon his staff:, speaking
wanly and weightily as I never heard a ipan spbak
before or since. ‘ Nay ; the lambkin must-have fallen
before I came by. But I heard the mother ^)le^, and
I knew, by the sound, that she was in distress.- There-
fore I turned towards the crag upon which she stood,
and, looking down, I perceived the lamb .fallen a-
mong the brambles beneath a high ledge.’ ' ^

‘And went down over for her yourself and brought
her up again ! ‘Twas bravely done. Good Stranger,’
I answered, and then, thinking to encourage him,
I said, ‘ Better you could not have done it, had you
been a shepherd yourself, for I see your hands are
torn.’

‘It is nothing,’ he answered. ‘A shepherd expects
that.’

‘ Then are you a shepherd too. Master Str^ger?’
I asked, but he gave no answer; only fastened his
eyes upon me as we climbed together up the^ Bill.
Wonderful eyes he had, not like to other mein’s; »Wfth
a depth and yet a light in them, as when the Juije SUn
shines back reflected from the blackness of a moun-
tain tarn. I saw them then, and still I seem to see
them, for when he looked at me, although he said no
word, it was as if he knew me apart from everyone else
in the world, even as I know every one my master’s
sheep. I felt that he knew too how I had been look-
ing at that cot in the vale and dreaming idly, forget-
ful of my lambs. Therefore, though he said no word
ii6

SHEPHBRD of PENDLE H|;LE

of rebuk^ to me, Ifelt my cheeks gKdVhot,aDd Ihung
my h^ad and sp|ke not’ *;0|ily, when we reached the
top of the hill, he turned and answered me at last
*Thoit*judgest right, friend,' he said, ‘I was indeed
a shepherd in my young year^ . I am a shepherd even
now, though as yet with full few sheep. But, here-
after, it may be . .

I (^d pot wait for the end of his sentence. Now
that we were come to level ground I was fain to show
that I was not a careless, idle shepherd in truth. My
mind was ‘feet cn Periwinkle’s leg ; broken, I fea’-ed,
for it huhg down limply. I took her, — laid her on
the grass beside her dam while I fashioned a rough
splint, shjppherd-fashion, to keep the leg steady till we
reached the fold. Then, seeing the sun was low by
this time and nigh to setting over beyond the sea to-
wards Morecambe, I called my sheep and gathered
th^m from all the fells, near and far; and a fairer flock
of Sheep ye shall never see ’twixt Scotland and Trent,
as tke song says, though I trow ye may, an ye look
carefully, find steeper hills than old Pendle.

/ When, my work was done, I took up Periwinkle
ill my arms once more, anxious to descend with her
ere night; fell. Already I was climbing carefully down

slo^, when, bless me, I remembered the Stranger,
and that I had left him without a word, he having
gone clean out of my mind, and I not having given
him so much as a ‘ thank ye ' at parting, for all he
had saved Periwinkle. But I think I must have gone
clean out of jjijs mind too.

When I came back to him once more, there he
was, still standing on the very top of the hill, where
I had left hinj. But now his head was raised, the

117

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

breeze lifted his hair. A kind of glory was on him.
It was light from the smiiset'sky, I thought at first;
but it was brighter far than that; for the sunset sky
looked dull and dim beside it. His eyes were roam-
ing far and wide over the valleys and hills, ev^n as
my eyes had wandered, when I was gathering my
sheep. But his eyes wandered further, and further
far, till they reached the utmost line of the Irish Sea
to westward and covered all the country that lay be-
tween. Then he turned himself around to the east
again. A strong man he was and a tall, and the glory
was still on his face, though now he had the sunset
sky at his back. And he opened his mouth and spake.
Strange were his words :

‘If but one man, ’said he, ‘but one man or woman,
were raised by the Lord’s Power to stand and live
in the same Spirit that the Apostles and Prophets were
in, he or she should shake all this country for miles
round.’ Shake all the country! He had uttered a fear-
some thing. ‘Nay, Master Stranger, bethink ye,’ I
said, going up to him, ‘ how may that be ? * What
would happen to me and the sheep were these fells
to shake? Even now, though they stand steady, you
have seen that wayward lambs like Periwinkle will
fall over and do themselves a mischief.’ So I spake,
being but a witless lad. But my words might have
been the wind passing by him, so little he heeded
them. I doubt if he even heard or knew that I was
there although I stood close at his side. For again
his eyes were resting on the Irish Sea, and on the
country that lay shining in the sun towards Furness,
and on the wide, glistening sands round Morecambe
Bay. And then he turned himself round to the north

ii8

SHEPHERD OF PENDLE HILL

where lie the high mountains that can at times be
seeai, or guessed, in tlie glow of the setting sun. Thus,
as he gazed cn all that faif land, the Stranger spoke.
Again he uttered strange words.

^At first his voice was low and what he said reached
me not, save only the words : ‘A great people, a great
people to be gathered.’

Whereat I, being, as I say, but a lad then, full of
my own*notions and mighty sure of myself as young
lads are, plucked at his sleeve, having heard but the
last words, and supposing that he had watched me
gathering my Rock for the fold.

‘Not people, Master Stranger, ’I interrupted. ‘Tis
my business to gather sheep. Sheep and silly, heed-
less lambs like Periwinkle, ’tis them I must gather
for my master’s fold.’

He saw and heard me then, full surely.

‘ Aye,’ he said, and his voice, though deep, had
music in it, while his eyes pierced me yet again, but
more gently this time, so that I made sure he had
seen me tending Periwinkle and knew that I had
done the best I could. ‘Aye, verily thou dost well.
Shepherd of Pendle, to gather lambs and silly sheep
for their master’s fold. I, too . . But there again
he broke off and fell once more into silence.

Thus I left him, still standing atop of the hill;
but as I turned to go I heard his voice yet again, and
though I looked not round, the sound of it was as if
a man were speaking to his friend, for all I knew
that he stopd there, atop of the hill, alone :

‘ I thank thee. Lord, that Thou hast let me see
this day in what places Thou hast a great people,

a great people to be gathered.

‘ •• 119

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Thereat I partly, understood, yet turned not back
again, nor sought to enquire further of his meaning;
for the daylight was fast fading and I had need of
all my sTcill in getting home my sheep.

VII. THE PEOPLE IN
WHITE RAIMENT

^ After a while he {G. F.) travelled
up further towards the dales in
Yorkshire^ as Wensdak^ and Sed-
burgh^ and amongst the hills^ daleSy
and mountains he came on and con-
vinced many of the eternal Truth!
— M. fox's Testimony to g. FOXt

^ In the mighty power of Gody go
ouy preaching the Gospel to every
creature^ and discipling them in
the name of the Father y Sony and
Holy Spirit. In the name of Christ
preach the mighty day of the Lord
to all the consciences of them who
have long lain in darkness. ... In
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
go OKy that that of God in all con-
sciences may witness that ye are
sent of God and are of God and
so according to that speak. Sound,
sound the trumpet abroady ye vali-
ant soldiers of Christs Kingdoniy
of which there is no end. ... Be
fa7nous in his Light and bold in
his strength ! — G. fox.

^ Let us in our message offer that
which is beyond all creeds, —
the evidence in our lives of com-
munion with the Spirit of God!
— J. W, ROWNTREE.

VII. THE PEOPLE IN
WHITE RAIMENT

T he summer twilight was fading into night.
The moon, hidden at her rising by a bank
of Clouds, had now climbed high above
them, and shone down, a golden lamp from the
clear evening sky. It wan already dusk when the
Shepherd of Pendio disappeared with his flock into
the dewy valley. It was already light again, with the
pallid light cf the moon, when at length George Fox
descended old Pendle Hill. Heavily he trod and
slowly. Wrapped in thought was he, as a man who
has seen things greater and more mysterious than he
can express or comprehend. Only as he descended
the slope of the hill did he remember that he was
bodily weary, having eaten and drunk little for
several days. A short distance from the summit,
his ear caught the tinkle of falling watery and guided
by its gentle music he came to where a tiny spring
gushed out of the hillside, and went leaping on its
way, gleaming like a thread of silver. Fox knelt
down upon the soft turf, and dipping his hand, cup-
wise, into the water, he carried with difficulty a few
shining drops to his parched lips. The cool fresh-
ness of even this scanty draught revived him. He
looked round, his glance roaming o/er the wide
landscape that lay, mist -filled and moon -filled,
beneath him, but as yet scarce seeing what he saw.
Then, rising and quickening his steps, he hastened
down the hill to the place where, hours before, his
companion, Richard Farnsworth, had promised to

await his return.

• •

123

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Even faithful Richard had grown weary, as time
passed ^nd the night drewton apace. He had been
minded chide his friend for his forgetfulness and
long delay, but as the two men met, something
stopped him, or ever he began to speak. Maybe
it was the moonlight that fell full upon George Fox’s
countenance, or maybe there was in truth visible
there some faint reflection of the radiar^ce that
transfigured the face of Moses, when he too, coming
down from a far mightier revelation on a far loftier
mountain, ‘ wist not that the skin of his face shone.’

At any rate , Richard, loyal soul, checked the im-
patient words of remonstrance that had risen to his
lips. Silently putting his hand through his friend’s
arm, he led him a mile or two further along the road,
until they came to the small wayside inn where they
intended to spend the night.

No sooner were they within doors than Richard
was startled afresh by the pallor of his companion’s
countenance. The glory had departed now. No-
thing but utter weariness remained. In all haste
Richard called for food and drink, and placing them
before Fox he almost forced him to partake. Fox
swallowed a few mouthfuls of bread, and drank a
little clear red wine in a glass. Then as he set the
glass down, he noticed the inn-keeper who was
standing by, watching his guest’s every movement
with curious eyes.

A rough, plain countryman, he seemed, mine host
of the ale-house, to most of those who l^ad dealings
with him. But Fox, in spite of his own bodily
hunger and physical weariness, discerned that the
spirit of the man before him knew the (^ravings of^a
124

PEOPLE IN WHITE RAIMENT

yet keener need: was fainting under the weight of
a yet heavier load. Irustantly he recognised the
seeking soul within, even as the Shepherd eff Pendle
a few hours previously, out on the hillside, had re-
cognised his masters maik on the straying sheep.
Forgetting his own weariness, even for the time
putting aside the remembrance oi the visions he had
seen, h^i set himself to win and satisfy this humble
soul at his side.

‘ I declared Truth to the rran of the house,’ so
runs his Journal, * and wrote a paper to ihe priests
and professors declaiing “the day of the Lord and
that Christ was come to teach His people Himself,
by His power and spirit in their hearts, and to bring
people off from all the world’s ways and teaching, to
His own free teaching who had bought them, and
was the Saviour of all them that believed in Him.”
And the man of the house did spread the paper up
and down and was mightily affected with Truth!’

The inn -keeper went out full of gladness to
‘ publish ^ruth ’ in his turn. Henceforth he was a
new man in the power of the new message that had
been entrusted to him. A new life lay before him.

But when the two friends were once more alone
together, and the immediate task was done, Richard
Farnsworth perceived the strange look that had
silenced him at the foot of the mountain returning
to his companion’s face. Only now the weariness
was fading, it was the glory that returned.

Pushing**iway the table, George Fox rose to his
feet, and stretched both his arms out wide. He and
Farnsworth were alone in the narrow inn parlour,
lighted only*by one flickering rushlight. So small

125

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

was the ' room that the whitewashed walls pressed
close on every side. So 4ow was the ceiling that
when Fox arose and drew himself up to his full
height the black oak beams were scarce a hand’s
breadth above his head.

Yet Richard, as he looked up, awed and silent,
from his stool by the table, felt as if his friend were
still standing far above him on the summit pf a high
hill, with nothing but the heights of sky beyond his
head and with the hills and valleys of the whde
world stretching away below his feet.

‘I see,’ said.Fox,and,as he spoke, to Richard too
the narrow walls seemed to open and melt away into
infinite space on every side: ‘I see a people in white
raiment, by a riverside — a great people — in white
raiment, coming to the Lord.’

The flickering rushlight spluttered and went out.
Through the low casement window the white mists
could be seen, still rising from every bend and fold of
the widespread valleys that lay around them, rising
up, up, like an innumerable company of spirit-filled
souls, while the moon shone down serenely over all.

II

It was a few days later, and Whitsun Eve. The
same traveller who had climbed to the top of old
Pendle Hill ‘with much ado, it was so steep,’ was
coming down now on the far side of the Yorkshire
dales.

‘A lusty strong man of body’ but /'of a grave
look or countenance,’ he ‘ travelled much on foot
through rough and untrodden paths.’ ‘As he passed
through Wensleydale he advised the people as he
126

PEOPLE IN WHITE RAIMENT

met or passed through them’ ‘to fear God/^‘which
. . . did much alarm the ptople, it being a time that
many people were filled with zeal’

At sunset he passed through a village of flax-
weavers whose settlements iay in the low fiatts that
bordered the rushing river Rawthey a mile or two
outside of Sedbergh 1 own.

‘I canje through the Dales,’ say.. George Fox in
his Journal, ‘and as I w^as passing along the way, I
asked a man which was Richard Robinson’s, and
he asked me from whence I came, and I told him
“From the Lord.”’

This must have been a rather unexpected answer
from a traveller on the high road. Can you not see
the countryman’s surprised face as he turns round
and stares at the speaker, and wonders whatever he
means?

‘So when I came to Richard Robinson’s I declared
the Everlasting Truth to him, and yet a dark jealousy
rose up in him after I had gone to bed, that I might
be somebf^y that was come to rob his house, and he
locked all his doors fast. And the next day I went
to a separate meeting at Justice Benson’s where the
people generally was convinced, and this was the
place that I had seen a people coming forth in white
raiment; and a mighty meeting there was and is to
this day near Sedbarr which I gathered in the name
of Jesus.’

These flax-weavers of Brigflatts were a company
of ‘Seekers,^»unsatisfied souls who had strayed away
like lost sheep from all the sects and Churches, and
were longing for a spiritual Shepherd to come and
* • » * First Publishers of Truth.

127

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

find them again and bring them home to the fold.

George Fox was a wea&^er’s son himself. Directly
he heand it, the whirr of the looms beside the rush-
ing Rawtheymust have been a homelike sound in his
ears. But more than that, his spirit was immediately
at home among the little colony of weavers of snowy
linen; for he recognised at once that these were the
riverside people ‘in white raiment,' whonj he had
seen in his vision, and to whom he had been sent.

Not only the flax- weavers, but also some of the
‘considerable people'of the neighbourhood accepted
the message of the wandering preacher, who came to
them over the dales that memorable Whitsuntide.
The master of the house where the meeting was held,
Colonel Gervase Benson himself, and his good wife
Dorothy also, were ‘convinced of Truth,' and faith-
fully did they adhere thereafter to their new faith,
through fair weather and foul. In later years, men
noted that this same Colonel Benson, following his
teacher's love of simplicity, and hatred of high-sound-
ing titles, generally styled himself merely afithusband-
man,' notwithstanding ‘the height and glory of the
world that he had a great share of,'*" seeing that ‘he
had been a Colonel, a Justice of the Peace, Mayor
of Kendal, and Commissary in the Archdeaconry
of Richmond before the late domestic wars. Yet,
as an humble servant of Christ, he downed those
things.' ^ His wife, Mistress Dorothy, also, was to
prove herself a faithful friend to her teacher in after
years, when his turn, and her turn too,cUme to suffer
for ‘Truth's sake.'

But in these opening summer days of 1652, no

* First Publishers of Truth. “

128

PEOPLE IN WHITE RAIMENT

shadows fellon thesunriseof enthusiasmand of hope,
as, in the good Justice’s house beside the rushing
Rawthey, the gathering of the ‘great people’ began.

The day was Whitsunday, the anniversary of that
other gathering in the upper room at Jerusalem, when
the Apostles being all ‘in one place, with one accord,
of one mind,’ the rushing mighty Wind came and
shook all the place where they were sitting, folio »\’ed
by the cloven tongues ‘ like as of fire, that sat upon
each of them.’

Thcgiftgivenat Pentecost has never been recalled.
Throughout the ages the Spirit waits to take possession
of human hearts, ready to fill even the humblest
lives with Its Own Power of breath and flame.

This was the Truth that had grown dusty and
neglected in England in this seventeenth century.
The ‘still, small Voice ’had been drowned in the clash
of arms and in the almost worseclamour of athousand
different sects. Now that, after his own long search
in loneliness and darkness, George Fox had at length
found the Voice speaking to him unmistakably in
the deptns of his own heart, the whole object of his
life was to persuade others to listen also to ‘the true
Teacher that is within,’ and to convince them that
He was always waiting to speak not only in their
hearts, but also through their lives. ‘My message
unto them from the Lord was,’ he says, ‘that they
should all come together again and wait to feel the
Lord’s power and spirit in themselves, to gather them
together to Christ, that they might be taught of Him
who says “£earn of Me.’”

This was the Ttuth — an actual, living Truth —
that not only the flax-weavers of Brigflatts, but many
K 129

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Other companies of ‘Seekers’ scattered through the
dales of Yorkshire and \Vestmorland, as well as in
many other places, had £een longing to hear pro-
claimed. ‘Thirsty Souls that hunger’ was one of the
names by which they called themselves. It was to
these thirsty, hungering Souls that George Fox had
been led at the very moment when he was burning
to share with others the vision of the ‘wide horizons
of the future’ that had been unfolded to hfm on the
top of old Pendle Hill.

No wonder that the Seekers welcomed him and
flocked round him, drinking in his words as if their
thirsty souls could never have enough. No wonder
that he welcomed them with equal gladness, rejoicing
not only in their joy, but yet more in that he saw his
vision’s fulfilment beginning. Here in these secluded
villages he had been led unmistakably to the ‘Great
People,’ whom he had seen afar off, waiting to be
gathered.

Within a fortnight from that assembly on Whit-
Sunday at Justice Benson’s hou.se Georgy Fox was
no longer a solitary, wandering teacher, trying to con-
vince scattered people here and there of the Truths
he had discovered. Within a fortnight — a wonderful
fortnight truly — he had become the leader of a mighty
movement that gathered adherents and grew of itself,
spreading with an irresistible impulse until, only a
few years later, one Englishman out of every ninety
was a member of the society of friends.

Vlll. A WONDER
FUL FORTNIGHT

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

changed sorrowful greetings as they met one another
amid all the riot and hubbub” of the Fair; for they
had triqd the forty-eight sects in turn for the nourish-
ment their souls needed, and had tried them all in
vain.

Until this miraculous Whitsuntide of June 1652,
when, suddenly, in a moment, everything was
changed. * ^

The little groups of Seekers stood still and looked
at one another in astonishment as they came out
from the shadow of the narrow street of grey stone
houses into the open square in the centre of the town.
For there, opposite the market cross and under the
spreading boughs of a gigantic yew-tree, they saw a
young man standing on a bench, and preaching as
they had never heard anyone preach before. Behind
him rose the massive square tower, and the long row
of clerestory windows that were, then as now, the
glory of Sedbergh Church. The tall green grass of
the churchyard was already trampled down by the
feet of hundreds of spell-bound listenersK,^^

Who was this unexpected Stranger who dared to
interrupt even the noisy business of the Fair with
the earnestness and insistence of his appeal? He was
a young and handsome man, with regular features
and hair that hung in short curls under his hat-brim,
contrary to the Puritan fashion ; big-boned in body,
and of a commanding presence. The boys of the
grammar school, determined to make the most of
their holiday, thought it good sport at fvst to mock
at the Stranger’s garb. As he stood there, lifted up
above them on the rough bench, they could see every
detail of the queer leather breeches tji^t he wore

134

A WONDERFUL FORTNIGHT

underneath hislbngcoal. Hisgirdle with its alchemy
buttons showed off grandly too, while the fine linen
bands he wore at his neck gleamed out with^azzling
whiteness against the dark branches of Sedbergh^s
majestic old yew-tree.

The preacher’s words and tones and his pierc-
ing eyes quickly overawed his audience, and made
them fqrget his outlandish appearance. Even
the boys could understand what he was saying, for
he seemed to be speaking to each one of them, as
much as to any of the gro wn-up people. And what
was this he was telling them ? With outstretched
hand he pointed upwards, insisting that that church,
the beautiful building, the p’-ide of Sedbergh, was
not a church at all. It was only a steeple-house;
they themselves were the true church, their own souls
and bodies were the temples chosen by the Spirit
of God for His habitation. No wonder the school-
boys, and many older people too, became awed and
silent at the bare idea of such a Guest. None of
the eigljl,)^nd-forty sects of Sedbergh town had ever
heard doctrine like this before. Possibly there
might not have been eight-and-forty of them if
they had.

Once during the discourse a Captain got up and
interrupted the Stranger : ‘ Why do you preach out
here under the yew-tree? Why do you not go
inside the church and preach there?’

‘ But; says George Fox, ‘ I said unto him that
I denied tl\eir church.

‘Then stood up Francis Howgill, a separate
preacher, that had not seen me before, and so he
began to (jj^pute with the Captain, but he held his

135

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

peace. Then said Francis Howgill, “This man
speaks with authority, and not as the Scribes.’’

‘And so,’ continues George Fox, ‘ I opened to the
people that that ground and house was no holier than
another place, and that house was not the Church,
but the people which Christ is head of. And so,
after a while that I had made a stand among the
people, the priests came up to me and I warned them
to repent. And one of them said I was mad, and
so they turned away. But many people were glad
at the hearing of the Truth declared unto them that
day, which they received gladly.

‘And there came one Edward Ward, and he said
my very eyes pierced through him, and he was
convinced of God’s everlasting truth and lived and
died in it, and many more was convinced there at
that time.’

Convinced they were indeed, as they had never
been convinced in all their former lives; and now that
they had found the teacher they wanted, the hungry,
thirsty Seekers were not going to let him go v^ain. Al-
most overturning the booths of the Fair, these solemn,
sad-eyed men jostled each other like children in their
endeavours to reach their new friend.

There at the back of the crowd solid John Camm,
the prosperous ‘ statesman ’ farmer of Cammsgill, near
Preston Patrick, could be seen waving his staff like a
schoolboy to attract the preacher’s attention as soon
as the sermon stopped. ‘ Come home, young Sir !
Come home with me,’ John Camm called^out lustily.

But ruddy-cheeked John Audland, the linen-
draper of Crosslands, had been quicker than the
elderly farmer. He was a happy bridq^room that
136

A WONDERFUL FORTNIGHT

summer, and bringing his wife with him for the first
time to Sedbergh Fair. She -*-a Seeker like himself —
had been known in her maiden days as gentle^ Anne
Newby of Kendal town : yet the ways of the dales-
men and of the country pec pie were in a measure
strange to her, seeing all her girlhood had been spent
at her aunt’s house in London town, where she
had receivjjd her education. Possibl} she had looked
forward not without dread to the rough merry-making
of the Fair; but she too had kindled at the Stranger’s
message. Her shyness fled from her as, v:ith her
hand locked fast in her husband’s, the two pressed
forward. The crowd seemed to melt away at sight
of their radiant faces, and almost before the sermon
was ended the young couple found themselves face
to face with the preacher. The same longing was
in both their hearts: the same words rose unbidden
to their lips: ‘Come back with tis to Crosslands, Sir!
Come back and be the first guest to bless our home.’

George Fox smiled as he met the eager gaze of
the young^^lk, and stretched out a friendly hand.
’But an old slow man with a long white beard had
forestalled even the impetuous rush of the youthful
bride and bridegroom.

‘ Nay, now, good friends,’ said Farmer Thomas
Blaykling of Drawwell, ‘ my home is nigh at hand.
For the next three days the Stranger is mine. He
must stay with me and I will bring him to Firbank
Chapel on Sunday. Come ye also thither and hear
him again, and, bring every seeking man and woman
and child in all these dales to hear him too ; and
thereafter ye shall have him in your turn and enter-
tain-him wher^ye will.’

137

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

II

The first three peaceful days after the Fair were
spent ^by the young preacher at Drawwell Farm,
knitting up a friendship with its inmates that neither
time nor suffering was able thereafter to unravel.

‘The house inhabited by the Blayklings may still
be seen. Its thick walls, small windows and rooms,
with the clear well behind, must be almost jn the same
condition as in the week we are remembering.* *

In later days many a ‘ mighty Meeting * was to
be held in the big barn that adjoins the small white-
washed house with its grey flagged roof. Drawwell
is situated about two miles away from Sedbergh, on
the sunny slope of a hill overlooking the River Lune,
that here forms the boundary between the two
counties of Westmorland and Yorkshire.

There, under the shadow of the great fells, George
Fox had time for many a quiet talk with his hosts, in
the days that followed the Whitsuntide Fair. John
Blaykling, the farmers son, was a man of strong
character. He was afterwards to bec%tf^e himself
a powerful preacher of the Truth and to suffer for it
when persecution came. Moreover, ‘ he was a great
supporter of them that were in low circumstances
in the world, often assisting them in difficult cases
to the exposing of himself to great hazards of loss.*
He had also an especial care for the feelings of
others. On the Sunday after the Fair he was anxious
to take his guest to Firbank Chapel, where the
Seekers’ service was to be held, high.'up on the hill
opposite Drawwell. Yet he seems to have had some
misgivings that his guest might be too full of his own

* Ernest E. Taylor, A Great People gathered, ^ ^

138

A WONDERFUL FORTNIGHT

powerful m^sage to rernember to behave courteously
to others, who, although in a humbler way, were still
trying to declare the Truth as far as they had a4cnow.
ledge of it. Fox writes in his Journal :

‘And the next h irstday I came to Firbank Chapel,
where Francis Howgill and John Audland were
preaching in the morning, and John Blaykling and
others can^e to me and desired me not to reprove
them publicly, for they was not parish teachers but
pretty sober men, but I would not tell them whether
I would or no, though I had little in me to declare
publicly against them, but told them they must leave
me to the Lord s movmgs. The chapel was full of
people and many could not ge*- in. Francis Howgill
(who was preaching) said he thought I looked into
the Chapel, but I did not. And he said that I might
have killed him with a crab-apple, the Lord’s power
had so surprised him.

‘So they had quickly done with their preaching to
the people at that time, and they and the people went
to their dipi^ftrs, but abundance stayed till they came
again. And I went to a brook and got me a little
water, and so I came and sat me down atop of a rock,
(for the word of the Lord came to me that I must go
and sit upon the rock in the mountain, even as Christ
had done before).

‘ And in the afternoon the people gathered about
me with several separate teachers, where it was judged
there was above a thousand people. And all those
several separate teachers were convinced of God’s
everlasting truth that day, amongst whom I declared
freely and largely .God’s everlasting truth and word
of life about th^ee hours. And there was many old

139

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

people went into the chapel and looked out of the
windows and thought it a strange thing to see a man
to pr<?ach on a hill or mountain, and not in their
church as they called it So I was made to open to
the people that the steeple-house and the ground
whereon it stood was no more holier than that
mountain . . . but Christ was come who ended the
temple and the priests and the tithes, and phrist said,
“Learn of me,” and God said, “This is my beloved
Son, hear ye Him.”

* For the Lord had sent me with His everlasting
gospel to preach, and His word of life so that they
all might come to know Christ their Teacher, their
Counsellor, their Shepherd to feed them, and their
Bishop to oversee them, and their Prophet to open
to them, and to know their bodies to be temples of
God and Christ for them to dwell in. . . . And so,
turning the people to the Spirit of God, and from the
darkness to the light, that they might believe in it and
become children of light.^

Ill

‘Now, it is our turn,' insisted ruddy-faced John
Audland, ‘George Fox must come home with me. My
house at Crosslands will be the most convenient rest-
ing-place for him, seeing it lies mid-way between here
and Preston Patrick; and to Preston Patrick and the
General Meeting of our Seeking People he must cer-
tainly come, since it is to be held in three days’ time.
There are many folk, still seeking, on4he other side
of the dales, who have not yet heard the good news,
but who will rejoice mightily when they find him
there. Besides, he has promised nyr wife that he
140

A WONDERFUL FORTNIGHT

Will be the first guest to come and bless our home/

‘Yes in truth, he shall i;^turn with thee,’ echoed
Audland’s friend, John Camm of Cammsgill„‘ since
Preston Patrick is too far a step for him to-day. He
shall lodge with thee and thy good wife Anne, and
bless your home. But on Wednesday, betimes, thou
must bring him to me at Cammsgill right early in
the day— and I will take him as my guest to Preston
Patrick and our Seekers’ Meeting.’

John Audland readily assented to this pioposal.
He and his wife would have the wonderful Stranger
all to themselves until Wednesday. As the two men
wandered back over the hills in a satisfied silence,
his mind was full of all the questions he meant to
ask. For had not he himself, though only a youth
of twenty-two, been one of the appointed preachers
at Firbank Chapel ? Truly he had done his best
there, as at other times, to feed the people; yet in
spite of his words they had seemed ever hungry, un-
til the Stranger came among them, breaking the True
Bread ofl^ for all to share.

John. Audland was ‘a young man of a comely
countenance, and very lovely qualities.’* Never a
thought of jealousy or envy crossed his mind ; only
he was filled with a longing to know more, to learn,
to be fed himself, that he, in his turn, might feed
others. Still, being but human, it was with slight
irritation that he heard himself hailed with a loud
‘halloo!’ from behind. Looking round, he beheld a
long-legged figure amblingafter them along the dusty
road, and recognised a certain tactless youth, John
Story by name, faiiious throughout the district for

* Sew el’s History of the Quakers,

141

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

his knack of thrusting himself in where he was least
wanted. Without so mij^ch as a ‘by your leave* John
Story caught up the other two men and began a lively
conversation as they walked along.

Self-invited, he followed them into John Audland^s
home ; where the young bride, Anne, was too well
bred to betray her disappointment at this unexpected
visitor. Elbowing his way rudely past the master of
the house and the invited guest, John Story stalked
ahead into the bridal parlour and sat himself down
deliberately in the best chair. ‘ Tm your first guest
now, Mistress Anne,* he said with a chuckle. Then
lighting his pipe he threw his head back and made
himself comfortable — evidently intending to stay
the evening. But his chief care and intention was
to patronise George Fox. He had been at Firbank
also, and he had remembered enough of the sermon
there to repeat some of the preacher’s words jestingly
to his face. He handed his lighted pipe to George
Fox, saying, ‘Come, will you take a pipe of tobacco?’
— and added, mockingly, seeing hi^^ hesitation,
‘Come, all is ours ! ’

‘ But,’ says George Fox, ‘ I looked upon him to
be a forward bold lad ; and tobacco I did not take.
But it came into my mind that the lad might think
I had not unity with the creation : for I saw he had
a flashy, empty notion of religion. So I took his
pipe and put it to my mouth, and gave it to him
again to stop him lest his rude tongue should say I
had not unity with the creation.’

And soon after this, let us hope, John Story, with
his tobacco and his rude tongue, saw fit to take his
leave, and remove his unwelcome presence.

142

A WONDERFUL FORTNIGHT

TV

Two more days of the ‘wonderful fortnight’
were passed in the linen-draper’s home at Cross-
lands^. before, on the Wednesday forenoo^i,* John
Audland and his guest descended the dales of
Westmorland and climbed the steep, wooded glen
that leads to Cammsgill Farm. There, at the door,
with hands outstretched in welcome, stood good
John CamVn and his loving wife Mabel. Peeping
behind them curiously at the Stranger was their
twelve-year-old son, Tom. At tne windows of the
farm were to be seen the ^aces of tiie men-servants
and maid-servants, for great w'as the curiosity to see
the Stranger of whom such great tidings had been
told. Among the serving-maids were two sisters,
Jane and Dorothy Waugh. Little did the eager girls
imagine that the Stranger whom they eyed so keenly
was to alter the whole course of their lives by his
words that day; that, for both of them, the pleasant,
easy, farm life at Cammsgill was over, and that they
were hereafter to go forth to preach in their turn, to
suffer bea^mgs and cruel imprisonments, and even to
cross the seas, in order to publish the same Truth
that he had come to proclaim.

Tom Camm also, boy as he was, was never to for-
get that eventful morning. Long years afterwards he
remembered every detail of it.

‘On the 4th day morning,’ he writes, ‘John Aud-
land came with George Fox to the house of John
Camm at Caipmsgill in Preston Patrick, who with his
wife and famifie gladly received G. F.’

And now, while' they are ‘gladly receiving’ their
guest and waiting till it is time to go down the steep

143

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

hill to Preston Patrick, let us look back at the farm-
house of Cammsgill wh(?re they are sitting, and learn
someJ:hing of its history and that of its owners.

It was to Cammsgill that Farmer John Camm had
brought home his bride on a late day of summer,
thirteen years before the eventful year 1652 of
which these stories tell. A wise, prosperous man
was good John Camm, one of the most successful
‘statesmen^ in all the fertile dales round-about. So
busy had he been developing his farm, and attend-
ing to the numerous flocks and herds, that were ever
increasing under his skilful management, that time
for love-making seemed to have been left out of his
life. But at last, when he was well over forty, he
found the one woman he had been unconsciously
needing through all his prosperous years to make his
life round and complete. It was a mellow day of
Indian summer when John and Mabel Camm walked
up the winding road to Cammsgill for the first time
as man and wife. But the golden sunshine that lay
on all the burnished riches of the well-filled farm-yard
was dim compared with the inward su^hine that
gladdened the farmer’s heart.

Farmer John had made a wise choice, and he
knew it. In his eyes nothing was good enough for
his wife, not even the home where he had been born,
and where his ancestors for generations had lived
and died; so Cammsgill had been entirely rebuilt
before that golden September day when John and
Mabel Camm came home to begin .their new life
together. The re-building had been done in such
solid fashion that part of the farm-house still stands,
well-proportioned and serviceable, after nearly three
144

A WONDERFUL FORTNIGHT

centuries have passed to test ii, showing that he who
builds for love builds' truly and well.

Mabel Camm was a proud woman as s|je stood
at ftie door of her hillside home and watched the
autumn sunlight lighting ip her husband’s face as
he walked across his fields in the valley, or strode,
almost with the energetic step of a young man, up
the crab-apple bordered trr.ck to the farm.

Close at his heels follovsed his collie, looking up
into his master’s face with adoring affection. Not
only every animal on the farm loved the master, the
men-servants and maid-servants also would do any-
thing to please him, for was he not ever mindful of
their interests as if they had been his own? In those
days each labourer had three or four acres of land as
of right. This fostered an independent spirit and
made their affection a tribute worth the winning.’^
Later on that same year, when winter came, earlier
than its wont, the fells were knee-deep in snow and
all the beasts were brought for shelter round the
farm to i^lect them from the snow drifts and bitter
weather on the upland pastures.

Then it was that at nights in the snug farm house
kitchen, after the day’s w^ork was done, John Camm
and his young wife together carved their initials
on the ‘ brideswain,’ a tall oak chest that held the
goodly stock of homespun linen and flax brought by
Mabel Camm to her new home. John Camm was
something of an artist. His was the design of the
interlaced initials. All his life he had been a skilful
carver with his tools on the winter evenings, and
now he took pleasure in showing his bride the right

E, .p. Taylor, Faithful Servants of God.

h MS

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

way to use them and how to fashion her strokes
aright. N ight after n ight tke two heads bent over their
task, bwt to this day it may still be seen at Camms-
gill that one of the two artists was less skilful than the
other, for MabeFs curves are more angular and with-
out the careless ease of her husband’s. What, how-
ever, did unskilful fingers matter when the firelight
shone upon two happy faces bending over the work
close together, aglow with the inner radiance of two
thankful hearts?

There were other uses for the brideswain the

following summer. The fair white sheets and pillow-
cases were moved to an under-shelf. The upper half of
the chest was filled to overflowing with tiny garments
fashioned by Ti/Iabel’s own fingers, skilful indeed at
this dainty work. N o more woodcarving now, but end-
less rows of stitchery, tiny tucks and delicate dotting,
all ready to welcome the little son who arrived before
the summer’s close, and completed his parents’ joy.

Since that day, a dozen years had slipped away.
Now young Thomas Camm was leavingiiq^ildhood,
as he had long left babyhood, behind him. He was
a big boy, quick, strong for his age, and bidding fair
to be as good a farmer as his father some day.

‘ Cammsgill was a favourite house with both men
and women servants, for Mistress Camm took care
that all had their fill of bread, butter, milk, eggs or
bacon, and each their three meals. Of the maid-
servants, Jane and Dorothy Waugh especially looked
on their master as a father, he was ,»o kind and
thoughtful of their needs. Indeed no one could
walk up the winding gill without meeting with a
warm welcome from the owners of thf ^farm-house,
146

A WONDERFUL FORTNIGHT

and on winter evenings there was many a large
“sitting/’ by aid of the rcisblights, in which the
neighbours joined, all hands being busy the> while
with the knitting of caps and jerseys for the Kendal
trade. . . . He and his v^ife greatly loved to enter-
tain visitors from a distance, especially those who
were like-minded with themselves, also looking for
“the coming of the day of the Lord,”’* for all the
household at Cammsgill were of the company of the
“ Seekers ” who met every month at the Chapel of
Preston Patrick in the valley below.

Now at last it is time for the Meeting.

Thomas Camm’s account continues: ‘And it hav-
ing been then a common practice among the said seek-
ing and religiously inclined people to raise a General
Meeting at Preston Patrick Chapel once a month,
upon the fourth day of the week, thither George Pox
went, being accompanied with John Audland and
John Carhm. John Audland would have had George
Fox go into the place or pew where usually he and
the preacherariid sit, but he refused and took a back
seat neav tne door, and John Camm sat down by him,
where he sat silent, waiting upon God for about half an
hour, in which tim e of silence Francis Howgill seemed
uneasy, and pulled out his Bible and opened it, and
stood up several times, sittingdown again andclosing
his book, and dread and fear being on him that he
durst not begin to preach. After the said silence
and waiting George Fox stood up in the mighty
power of God,*^nd in the demonstration thereof was
his mouth opened to preach Christ Jesus, the Light
of Life, and the ^way to God, and Saviour of all

* E. Taylor, Faithful Servants of God^

147

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

that believe and obey Him, which was delivered in
.that power and that autkority that most of the audit-
ory, \^ich were several hundreds, were effectually
reached to the heart, and convinced of the truth that
very day, for it was the day of God’s power. A
notable day indeed, never to be forgotten by me
Thomas Camm. ... I, being then present at that
Meeting, a school-boy but about twelye years of age,
yet, I bless the Lord for His mercy, then religiously
inclined, do still remember that blessed and glorious
day, in which my soul, by that living testimony then
borne in the demonstration of God’s power, was
effectually opened, reached and convinced, with
many more who are seals of that powerful ministry
that attended this faithful minister of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and by which we were convinced, and turned
from darkness to light and from Satan’s power to the
power of God. After which Meeting at Preston
Chapel, G. F. came to the house of John Camm at
Cammsgill. Next day travelled to Kendal where
he had a meeting, where many were ciN^inced and
received his testimony with joy.’

The ‘wonderful fortnight’ was drawing to a close.
The vision on Pendle Hill, when George F ox beheld
a people ‘ as thick as motes in the sun that should
in time be brought home to the Lord,’ had already
begun to form around it a Society of Friends who
were pledged to carry it out.

Remember always, it was not the Society that
beheld the vision 3 it was the vision th^t created and
creates the Society.

The vision is the important thing ; for it is still
unfulfilled.

148

IX. UNDER

THE YEW-TREES

* George Pox was a born leader of
souls* Theflame of religious ardour
which burned in him^ and the intense
conviction and spiritual power 7mth
7vhich he spoke^ would hi any age
have made him great. He was born
in a gener ation of revolutions andup-
heavals^ both political and spiritual.
Confusion and unrest.^ war and re-
formations^ give to great spirits a
power which^ when life is calm^r^
they might not attain. Fox drew to
himself a multitude of noble souls^
attracted to him by that which they
shared with him^ the sense of spirit-
ual realities^ and the consciousness
of the guiding Spirit. The age of
George Fox thirsted for sph'itual
reality. He had found it. Men
on all sides 7vere 7'eady to find it
as he had. The dales of Yorkshire^
and the hills of lakeland^ not less
than ihetowfisof the Midlands., had
men in them ready to 7-ejoice in the
touch of the spiritual.^ ready t^
spond to the movement of the Spi?ii.
See him then arrivingatsomefai-m-
yardinthehills., or may be at a coun-
try squires hall. . . J — Cyril
HEPiiER^ '‘Fellowship of Silence.^

‘ The house 7vas no doubt full of
music, as ivere indeed many others,
in that most musical of English
ceniuriesl — j. bailey, ‘ Milfonl

Motto on Seal of a letter to AF. Fell:

1660

^ GOD ABOVE ^

KEEP US IN HIS LIG^f
AND LOVE.*

IX. UNDER

THE YEW-TREES

S IX gay girls sat together, laughing and^alking,
under the shadow of the ancient yew-trees
that guard the eastern corner of Swarthmoor
Hall. The interlaced boughs of the gloomy old trees
made a cool canopy of shadow above the merry
maidens.* It was a breathless day of late J une, 1652,
at the very end of the ‘wonderful fortnight.’

There they were, Judge Fell’s six fair daughters:
Margaret, Bridget, Isabel, Sarah, Mary and little
Susanna, who was but three years old, on that hot
summer afternoon.

‘Tis a pity that there are only six of us,’ Sarah was
saying with mock melancholy. ‘ Now, suppose my
brother George instead of being a boy had been a girl,
then there would have been seven. The Seven Sisters of
Swarthmoor Hall ! In truth it has a gallant sound like
unto a play. Seven Y oung Sisters and Seven Ancient
YewTree?^ Each of us might have a yew-tree then for
hcrveryown.’ So saying, Sarah leant back against the
huge gnarled trunk behind her, her golden curls rip-
pling like sunshine over the wrinkled wood, while her
blue eyes peered into the dark-green depths overhead.

‘Moreover, in that case,’ continued Isabel, with a
touch of sarcasm in her voice, ‘and supposing the Sev-
enth Sister, who doth not exist, were to have seven more
daughters in her turn, — then it might be expected
that the Seventh Daughter of that Seventh Daughter
would have keener than mortal hearing, and sharper
than mortal sight She would be able to hear the grass
growing, and know when the fairies were making their

151

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

rings, and be able to catch the Brownies at their tasks,
so the country people say. Heigh ho! I wish she were
here ! 9** ^ would that I myself were the Seventh
Daughter of a Seventh Daughter, or still better the
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, for they have real true
second sight, and can look in magic crystals and fore-
see things to come.*

‘Now it is my turn,* chimed in Bridget, ‘I am the
eldest but one, and it is time I talked a littfe. Then
when the Seventh Daughter of the Seventh Daughter
walks hand in hand with the Seventh Son of a Sev-
enth Son (neither of whom, allow me to remind you
in passing, ever have existed, or, it is to be hoped, ever
will exist in a well-connected family like ours), when
they walk hand in hand under the shade of the Seven
Ancient Yew-trees which, we all know, have guarded
Swarthmoor for centuries . . . the Seven Ancient Trees
will be sure to overhear them whispering honeyed
nothings to each other. Then the oldest and wisest
of all the Trees (by the bye, it is that one behind you,
Isabel !)will say, “Dearly beloved Children, ahhough
the words you say are incredibly foolish, yet to me
they sound almost wise compared with the still more
incredibly foolish conversation carried on beneath my
old boughs in the Year of our Lord one thousand
six hundred andfifty-twoby your ever venerable Great
Aunt Isabel and your still more venerable Great Aunt
Sarah!’**

‘O Bridget ^ in aggrieved tones from the two
younger girls as they flung themselves upon her and
put laughing hands over her mouth, ‘that is too
bad, that is unkind»*

The eldest sister, Margaret, lookejd^ up from

152

UNDER THE YEW-TREES

the low bench where she was sitting with Mary and
Susanna, the two youngest children beside her. See-
ing the struggling heap of muslin and ribbons cjp the
grass she resolutely turned the talk into less personal
channels. ‘I do not at all agree with Sarah,’ she said
calmly, ‘besides it is much too hot to argue. For my
part, /think Six Sisters a^-e fully enough for any house-
hold. If I had more than five younger ones to look
after, I don^ know what I should do. Even for the
yew-trees it is better. There is one now for each of
us to sit under, and one to spare for my mother when
at last she comes home. I wonder what makes her
so late? When will she be here?’

A ripple of expectation stirred the maidens. Moved
by the same impulse, they all looked out under the
dark yew branches and over the sunlit oi chard, be-
yond which lay the high road leading up the hill from
Ulverston. Nothing as yet was to be seen and no faint-
est rumble of approaching wheels reached any of the
listeners.

Everywhei^e the hot air quivered in the sunshine.
Even the f>tately Elizabethan Hall with its high stone
chimneys and mullioned bay windows looked drowsy
and half asleep. A pale wisp of smoke was ascending
listlessly in a straight line above the gabled roofs high
up into the far still air. Scarcely a sound came from
the outbuildings that lay beyond the Hall. Even the
pigeons on the roof were too hot to coo. In the herb
garden beneath, the flowers drooped in the scorching
light. Glare ewgrywhere. Only under the yew-trees
was there to be found a pool of grateful shadow. And
even that pool had sunshine of its own radiating
from, the grouj)^of merry maidens, with their bright

153

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

faces and gay voices raised in perpetual talk, or laugh-
.ter, or song. For a little while they seemed to be busy
practising a madrigal. Then the irrepressible chatter
burst out afresh. Cool and fragrant all the maidens
looked, in their dresses of clear sprigged muslin, each
tied at waist, wrists, and throat with ribbons of a differ-
ent colour : lilac, lavender, primrose, cherry, emerald,
and blue. The garden roses might droop in the hot
garden outside, but the roses on the girls' cheeks, in-
stead of fading, flushed and deepened with growing
excitement. They all seemed full of suppressed eager-
ness, evidently waiting for something much desired
to happen.

At length tall Bridget, exclaiming, ‘It must be
time now !’ sprang to herfeet,and, stooping under the
clinging boughs of the yew-tree temple, drew herself
up to her full height outside its shade. Her gaze
roamed over the long grass of the orchard and down
the broad path, to the high stone arch of the entrance
gate through which she could just catch sight of a
glimpse of dusty road.

‘Nothing yet!’ she reported, ‘not even a sign of
the black horses’ edirs or heads above the hedge and
not a sound upon the road.’

Margaret raised her head to listen. She inherited
her mother’s placid, Madonna-like beauty, and was at
this time the fairest of the whole sisterhood. Sarah,
who was hereafter to be considered not only the wit
but also the beauty of the family, was at this time a
child of ten, and not yet grown into he^iull inheritance
of comeliness. In after years it was said of Sarah that
she was ‘not only beautiful and lovely to a high de-
gree, but was wonderfully happy in ingeny and mem-

154

UNDER THE YEW-TREES

ory/ But even at her loveliest it was never said of her,
as it was of Margaret, ‘thaUshe was ‘glorious, comely,
and beautiful in that which never fades away^* ‘lovely
in the truth, an example of holiness and vnsdom/

This tomely Margaret, seeing and hearing nothing
of what she sought, bent her fair face down once more
to the little sisters seated on each side of her. To be-
guile the waiting time she was making for themachain
of the daisies they had gathered as they flitted about,
like gay white butterflies, over the grass. Mary was
eight years old, and therefore able to pick daisies with
discretion; but the stalks of the flowers gathered by
little Susanna were all sadly too short and the flowers
themselves suffered in her tight hot hand. At this
moment Isabel ran to join Bridget and, standing on
tiptoe beside her, tried hard to see as much as her
taller sister.

‘Nothing yet, ’she reported, ‘not a sign of the black
horses nor even the top of the coach.’ Sarah, not to
be outdone, swung herself up, with a laugh, on to one
of the lowifr boughs of the oldest yew-tree, and stand-
ing on it thrust her golden head through the thick
canopy overhead. She peered out in her turn look-
ing across the orchard and overthe hedge totheroad,
then, bending down with a laughing face to Margaret
and the little ones, ‘I’m tallest now,’ she exclaimed,
‘and I shall be the first to spy the coach when it reaches
the top of the hill!’

But agile Isabel, ever ready to follow a sister’s lead,
had alread%left Bridget’s side and swung herself up,
past Sarah, on to a yet higher bough.

‘ Methinks ^ryot, Mistress Sarah,’ she called over
her head, §lpwly and demurely, ‘for now I can see yet

155

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

farther, and there are the horses’ ears and heads ; yea
and the chariot also, and aow,‘at last ! our mother’s
face 1 ’ ^

But the group below had not waited for her tidings.
They had heard the rumble of the wheels and the
horses’ feet on the road. With cries of joy, off they
all sped down the path and across the orchard; to
see who should be first at the gate to welcome their
mother. Only Margaret stayed behind on fier bench
among the scattered daisies, with a slightly pensive
expression on her lovely face.

‘All of them flying to greet her!’ Margaret thought
to herself. ‘ See, Bridget has caught up even Susanna
in her arms, that she shall not be left too far behind ;
while I, the eldest, whom my mother doth ever call her
right hand, am forced to stay here. But my mother
knows that my knee prevents me. She will not forget
her Margaret. Already she sees me, and is beckoning
the others to come this way.’

In truth Mistress Fell had already alighted and
was now passing swiftly under the high sifene arch of
the gateway. Never did she come through tfiat gate
without a flash of remipmbrance of the first time she
entered there, leaning on her husband’s arm, a bride
of seventeen summers, younger than her own fair
Margaret now. She entered, this time, leaning on the
arm of tall Bridget, walking as if she were a trifle
weary, yet stooping to pick up little Susanna and to
cover her with kisses as she moved up the path sur-
rounded by her cloud of girls.

‘ Not the house, maids,’ she cried, ‘ the yew-trees
first! I see my Margaret waiting there. Your news,
how marvellous soever, must wait until I Jiave greeted

156

UNDER THE YEW-TREES

my right-hand daughter and learned how she fares.*

‘ How art thou, dear Hfart?’ she enquired, as she
stooped down and kissed her eldest daughter^ and sat
down beside her. ‘ Hath thy knee pained thee a little
less this afternoon ?*

* M uch less, ’ answered Margaret gaily, ‘ in fact I had
almost forgotten it, and was about to rise and welcome
you with the rest, when a sudden ache reminded me
that I muSt nwt run yet awhile.*

Mistress Fell shook her head. ‘ I fear that I shall
have to take thee to London and to Wapping for the
waters some day. I cannot have my bird unable to fly
like the rest of the brood, and obliged to wait behind
with a clipped v.ing.*

‘Young Margrett,* as she was called, to distinguish
herfrom her mother, laughed aloud. ‘Nuynow, sweet
mother, *tis nothing,* she replied. ‘Let us think of
more cheerful things. In truth we have much to tell
you, for we have had an afternoon of visitors and many
happenings in thy absence.*

‘Visitori?* A slight furrow showed itself in the
elder Margaret*s smooth forehead, ‘ Well, that is not
strange, since the door of Swarthmoor stands ever
open to welcome guests, as all the country knows.
Still I would that I had been at home, or thy father.
Who w^ere the visitors, daughter ? *

It was Bridget who answered.

‘ My father hath often said that there has been
scarce a day without a visitor at Swarthmoor since he
first brought^ou here as its mistress,* she began primly,
‘ but in all these years, mother, I doubt you have never
set eyes on such an one as our guest of to-day. Priest
Ljimpitt said the same.*

157

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

‘Priest Lampitt? Hath he been here? And I not at
Home. Truly, it grieves me, children, to have missed
our good neighbour. Did he then bring a stranger
with him ? *

‘ No, No, No,’ a chorus of dissent broke from the
girls, all now seated round their mother on the grass,
each eager to be the first to tell the tale, yet at a loss
for words. Bridget, as usual, stepped in to the gap. She
explained that ‘the Priest had been amazed to find
the Stranger here. They had had much discourse. Till
at last. Priest Lampitt, waxing hot and fiery ere he
departed, strode down the flagged path slashing all the
flowers with his cane and never seemed to know what
he was doing, though you know, mother, that he loves
our garden.’

A shade of real annoyance crossed Mistress Fell’s
face. ‘Thegood Priest angered in my house,’ she said,
with real concern in her voice, ‘ and I not there, but
only a pack of giddy maids, who had not wit enough
between them to keep a discourteous stranger in his
place and prevent his being rude to an cold friend!
Nay, now, maidens, speak not all together. Ye are
too young and do but babble. Let Bridget continue,
or my Margaret. Either of them I can trust.’ But
‘young Margrett’ was bending her head still lower,
seemingly over her daisy chain.

‘ Truly, mother,’ she said in a low voice close to
her mother’s ear, ‘there are no words for him. He is
so — different; I knew not that earth held a man like
him. And he will be coming back shortly to the house
— maybe he is already awaiting you! ’

Mistress Fell looked up now in undisguised alarm.
Who was this nameless Stranger who had invaded h^r

158

UNDER THE YEW-TREES

house duringher absence, and had apparently stolen
the heart of her discreet ai>d dignified Margaret, in
one interviewjby the mere sight of his charms? Young,
handsome, quarrelsome; who could he be? What
had brought him to Swarthmoor to destroy its peace?

She turned to capable Bridget for information.
Bridget, never at a loss understood her mother’s fears,
or some of them, and immediately answered reassur-
ingly, ‘ Be hoi disquieted, sweet mother. Nothing
really untoward has happened. It is true the Stranger
disputed hotly with Lampitt, but it was the Priest's
blame as much as the Stranger’s at first, though after-
wards, when Lampitt held out his hand and wished to
be friendly, the Stranger turned from him and shook
him off. Yet, though his actions were harsh there
was gentleness in his face and bearing. He is a man
of goodly presence, this Stranger, but quite, quite old,
thirty or thereabouts by my guessing.’

The elder Margaret smiled. Bridget continued
hastily: ‘ Or may be more. Any way he seemed older
from his gravity, and from his outlandish dress. Under
his coat could be seen a leather doublet and breeches,
and on his head he wore a large, soft, white hat.’

At these words the concern in Mistress P"eirs face
disappeared in a moment. A quick look of welcome
sprang into her eyes.

‘ A man in a white hat ! ’ she exclaimed. ‘ Perhaps,
then, his coming forbodes good to us after all. It was
only the other night that, as I lay a-dreaming, I saw
a man in a largg white hat coming towards me. I had
been seeking for guidance on my knees, for often I
fear we are not wholly in the right way, with all our
seeding and religious exercises. In answer to my

159

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

prayer there came towards me, in my dream, a man,
'and I knew that he was»to b‘e the messenger of God
to me and to all my household. T ell me more, maidens,
of this Stranger, how he came and whence, and why
he left and when he will return.^

This time it was ‘young Margrett^ who answered.
Seeing the sympathy in her Mother^s eyes, she found
her voice at last, and rejoined quickly:

‘ He resembleth a Priest somewhat, 'yet not alto-
gether. Hespeaketh with more authority than anyone
I ever heard. Grave he is too. Grave as my father
when he is executing justice. Yet, for all his gravity,
as Bridget says, he is wondrous gentle. None of us
were affrighted at him, and the little maids ran to him
as they do to my father. Moreover, he showed them a
curious seal he carried in his pocket with letters inter-
twined among roses, a “G’' I saw, and an“F.” After-
wards he took them on his knees and blessed them
and they were wholly at ease. Priest Lampitt, who had
been w^atching through a window, his countenance
strangely altered by his rage, now took^iis departure.
Seeing him go, the Stranger put down the children
gently, setting Susanna with both her feet square-
ly on the polished floor, as I have seen a shepherd
set down a lamb, as if afeared that it might slip. Then
he turned in sorrow and spoke a few words to bis com-
panion. This was the man who brought him hither,
one of the Seekers fromWensleydale or thereabouts,

I should judge from his language ; but truly none of
us paid much heed to him. The two pf them left the
Hall together, and passed down through the herb-
garden, and over the stream. Once I noticed the
Stranger turn and gaze back at the hcjuse, searching
i6o

UNDER THE YEW-TREES

each window, as if looking for something he found
not there. Also he smiled sight of the yew-trees,
with a greeting as if they were old friends. Bridget
declares that she heard the Stranger, our Stranger,
say that he would return hnher shortly, when he had
set his companion a short distance on his homeward
way. But that is now more than two hours agone,
and as yet he hath not reappeared.*

‘ Well tAen, maids,* replied Mistress Fell briskly,
‘let us not linger here. It is high time we went back
to the house to welcome our guest, on his return.*
So saying, she rose to her feet, and aiding ‘young
Margrett * with one hand, she drew aside with the other
the thick screen of the branches. A ray of sunshine
fell upon Margaret Fell, standing there, in the velvety
gloom of the old yew-trees, with her six young daugh-
ters round her. Sunshine was in her heart too, as
she looked down fondly at them for a moment.

Then, lifting up her eyes, she recognised the un-
known man she had seen in her dream. In the full
blaze of sunlight, coming straight up the flagged path
towards lier was a Stranger, wearing a white hat. And
thus did Mistress Margaret Fell behold for the. first
time GEORGE FOX.

BEWITCHED

* When ye do judge of matters^ cr
when ye do judge ofwords^ or when
ye do judge of persons^ all these are
disti?ict things, A wise manwill not
give both his ears to one party hut
reserve one for the other party ^ and
will hear both^ and then judgel —

G. FOX,

^ And after I came to one Captain
SandSt ivhich he and his wife if they
could have had the iv or Id and truth
they would have received it. But
they was hypocrites and he a very
light ehajfy man^ a7id the ivay was
too strait for him ,^ — G, fox.

^ James the First was crazed beyond
his English subjects with the witch
mania of Scotland and the Conti-
nent, No sooner had his first parlia-
ment enacted ne7v death laws than
the judges and the magistrates^ the
constable and the mob began to hunt
up the oldest a?id ugliest spinster who
lived with her geese on the co7n7non ^ '
or tottered- about the village street.
Many pleaded guilty^ and described
the covenants they had formed 7inth
black dogs and*" ^goblins called Tihb'‘j
others were beaten or terrified into
fictitiotis confessions^ or perished^
denying their guilt to the last. The
black business cuhninated during
the Civil Wars when scores^ of
7vomen were put to deathl — '

G, M, TREVELYAN,

X; ‘BEWITCHED!’

S AINT S within ’sfeast^as passed. It was a sultry,
thundery afternoon of mid July, whqi three
horsemen were to be seen carefully picking
their way across the wide wet estuary of the River
Leven that goes by the name of ‘the Sands.’ The fore-
most lider was evidently the most important person
of the three. He was an oldish mon with a careworn
face, and deepset eyes occasionally lighted by a smile,
as he urged his weary horse across the sand. This was
no less a person than Judge Fell himself; the master
ofSwarthmoor Hall, attended by his clerk and his
groom, and returning to his home after a lengthy ab-
sence on circuit. A man of wide learning, of sound
knowledge of affairs, and giftedwithanexcellentjudg-
ment was Thomas Fell. He was as popular now, in the
autumn of his days among his country neighbours,
as he had been in former times in Parliament, and
among the Puritan leaders. Thrice had he repres-
ented his native county in the House of Commons,
and hac^be^n a trusted friend of Oliver Cromwell
himself. It was only latterly, men said, sinee Oliver
showed a disposition to grasp more and ever more
power for himself that the good Judge, unable
to prevent that of which he disapproved, had re-
tired from the intricate problems and difficulties of
the Capital. He now filled the office of Judge on
the Welsh Circuit and later on that of Vice-Chan-
cellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. But whether he
dwelt in the dounti yorin London town it was all one.

Wherever he came, men thought highly of him.* The

(

* ‘ Being beloved^ the historian says, ‘ for his justice, wisdom,
MioUerution, ai«i«mercy.’

165

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

good thirsted for his approval. The bad trembled to
meet his eye. Yet, it was noted, that even when he
was obliged to sentence some poor wretch, he seemed
to commiserate him, and he ever sought to throw the
weight of his influence on the side of mercy, although
no man could be sterner at times, especially when he
dealt with a case of treachery or cold-blooded cruelty.

The lines of his countenance were ru^ed, yet un-
derneath there was always an expression of goodwill,
and a kindly light in his eyes that seemed to come
from some still quiet fount of happiness within. It was
said of the Judge, and truly, that he had the happiest
home, the fairest and wisest wife, and the goodliest
young family, of any man in the county. That had
been a joyful day, indeed, for him, twenty years before,
when he brought the golden-haired Margaret Askew,
the heiress of Marsh Grange, as his bride to the old
grey Hall of Swarthmoor. Sixteen full years younger
than her husband was she, yet a wondrous wise-
hearted woman, and his companion in all things.

Now that a son and six fair daughtersi filled the
old Hall with music and gay laughter all day long,
the Judge might Well be no less proud of his ‘great
family^ than even of having been Oliver Cromweirs
friend.

He was ever loath toleave that cherished homefor
hislongabsences on the Chester and North Welsh Cir-
cuit, and ever joyful when the day came that hemight
return thither. Even the heavy sand that clogged his
horse’s feet could hardly make him dheck his pace.
The sands of Morecambe Bay are perilous at times,
especially to strangers, for the tide flows in with such
swiftness that even a galloping horse may not escape
t66

‘ BEWITCHED ! ’

it. But the J udge and his companions knew the dangers
well enough to avoid theni. Their trained eyes in-
stinctively marked the slight depressions in the sand
and the line of brogs, or half-hidden treeS; thit guide
travellers across by what is really the safest route,
although it may seem to take unnecessary loops and
curves. ^ At a little distance lay the lonely Chapel
Islano, surrounded by the sea even at low tide, where
in olden d^s lived a community of monks, who tolled
a bell to guide pilgrims across the shifting sands, or
said masses for the souls of those who perished.

A? bis horse picked its way carefully, the Judge
raised his eyes often towards the high plateau on the
horizon to which he was steadily drawing nearer with
every tedious step. Beloved Swarthmoor ! The house
itself was hidden, but he could plainly discern the
belt of trees in which it stood. H e thought of each of
the inmates of that hidden home. George, his only
son, how straight and ^•all he was growing, how gallant
a rider, and how skilful a sportsman even now, though
hasty in temper and over apt to take offence. His
gay maidens, v^rere they at this moment singing over
some new madrigal prepared to greet him on his re-
turn ? In an hour or two he should see them all
running down the garden path to welcome him, from
stately ‘young Margrett’ to little toddling Susanna.
His wife, his own Margaret, well he knew where she
would be ! watching for him from the lattice of their
chamber, where she was ever the first to catch sight

* ‘The san^ are left uncovered at low water to a great extent;
and travellers between Lancaster and Furness had formerly to
cross from Hest Bank to Ulverston by the route bragged out by
the guides ; the brogs being branches of trees stuck in the sand
to mark where the treacherous way was safest; a dreary distance
o^about 14 nkil^s. ’ — Richardson, Furness^ i. 14.

167

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

of him on his return, as she had been the last to bid
him farewell on his departure.

At this point the good Judge’s meditations were
suddenly interrupted by his groom, who, spurring his
horse on a level with his Master’s, pointed respect-
fully, with upraised whip, towards several moving
specks that were hastening across the estuary.

The softest bit of sand was over now, the travellers
were reaching firmer ground, where it ms possible
to go at a quicker pace. Setting spurs to his horse
the Judge hastened forward, his face flushing with an
anxiety he took no pains to conceal.

In those days, when posts were rare and letters
difficult to get or to send, an absence of many weeks
always meant the possibility of finding bad news at
home on the return from a journey.

‘ Heaven send they bring me no ill tidings ! ’ Judge
Fell said to himself as he cantered anxiouslyforward.
Before long, it was possible to make out that the mov-
ing specks were a little company of horsemen gallop-
ing towards them over the sands. A^ew minutes
later the Judge was surrounded by a group of breath-
less riders and panting horses, with bits and bridles^
flecked with foam.

The Judge’s fears increased as he recognised all
his most important neighbours. Their excited faces
alsostruck himwithdread. ‘Youbringmebad news?’
he had called out, as soon as the cavalcade came with-
in earshot. At the answering shout, ‘Aye, the worst,
his heart had sunk like lead. And now, here he was
actually in their midst, and not one of them could
speak. ‘Out with it, friends,’ he commanded, ‘let
me know the worst. To whom hath' evil happened?

i68

‘ BEWITCHED ! ’

my wife? My son^ My daughters?’

But even he was hardl)iprepared for the answer,
low-breathed and muttering like a roll of thunder ;
‘To all.’

‘To all !’ cried the agonised father. ‘Impossible!
They cannot all be dead!’ Again came the ominous
rejoinder, ‘Worse, far worse,’ and then, in a shout from
half-a-dozen throats at once, ‘Far, far worse. They
are all bewiiLchedl’ Bewitched! that was indeed a
word of ill-omen in those days, a word at which no
man, be his position ever so exalted, could afford to
smile. Ever since the days of the first Parliament
of the first Stuart king, the penalties for the sin ot
witchcraft had been made increasingly severe. Al-
though the country was now settling down into an un-
easy peace, after the turmoil of the Civil Wars, still its
witch hunts were even yet too recent a memory for
a devoted husband and father to hear the fatal ac-
cusation breathed against his family without dismay.
Not all a woman’s youth and beauty might always
save her, if tht hunt were keen. The Judge’s lipswere
tightly pressed cOgether, but his unmoved counten-
ance showed little of his inward alarm as he gazed
on the faces round him. His courteous neighbours,
who had ridden in such haste with the ‘ill news’ that
‘travels fast,’ which of them all should enlighten him?
His neighbour Captain Sands? a jovial good-hum-
oured man truly; — no, not he, he could not enter
into a husband and father’s deep anxiety, seeing that
he was ever of^a mocking disposition inwardly for all
that he looked sober and scared enough now. His
brother Justice, John Sawrey? Instinctively Judge
Fell recoiled^ from the thought. Sawrey’s counten-

169

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

ance might be sober enough in good sooth, seeing he
was a leader among professing Puritans, but some-
how J^udge Fell had always mistrusted the pompous
little man. Even bad news would be worsened if he
had to hear it from those lips. Therefore it was with
considerable relief that the good Judge caught sight
of a well-known figure riding up more slowly than
the others, and now hovering on the outskirts of the
group, ‘The very man! My honourefl neighbour
Priest Lampitt! You, the Priest of Ulverston, will
surely tell me what has befallen the members of my
household, who are likewise members of your flock?’

But the Priest's face was even gloomier than that
of the other gentlemen. In the fewest possible words,
but with stinging emphasis, he told the Judge that
the news was indeed too true ; his wife and young
family, yea, and even the household servants had, one
and all, been bewitched.

At this the Judge thought his wisest course was to
laugh. ‘ Nay, nay, good friends,’ he said, ‘ that is too
much ! I know my wife. I trust her gooJsen^e utterly.
Still it is possible for even the wisest of women to lose
her judgment at times. But as for my trusty steward
Thomas Salthouse, the steadiest man I have ever had in
my employ, if even old N ickhimself has managed to be-
witch him,hemust be a clevererdevil than I thought.’

Then drawing himself up proudly he added, ‘So
now, Gentlemen, I will thank you to submit to me
your evidence for these incredible and baseless al-
legations.’ Priest Lampitt hastened W explain. He
spoke with due respect of Mistress Fell, his ‘honoured
neighbour,’ as he called her. ‘ ’T;s her well-known
kindness of heart that hath led her astr^iy. She bath
1 70

‘ BEWITCHED ! ’

warmed a snake in her bosom, a wandering Quaker
Preacher, who hath beguilefl and corrupted both her-
self and her household.*

‘A wandering, Ranting Quaker entertained in my
house, during my absence!* Judge Fell had an even
temper, but the rising flush on his forehead betokened
the effort with which he kept his anger under control.

‘ I thank ye, gentles, for your news. My wife and I have
ever right gladly given food and lodging to all true
servants of the I-ord, but 1 will not have any Quakers
or Ranters creeping into my house during my absence
and nesting there, to set abroad such tales as ye have
hastened to spread before m e this day. Even the wisest
woman is but a woman still, and the sooner I reach
home the better.' So saying he raised his hat, and set
spurs to his horse. But little Mr. Justice Sawrey, edg-
ing out of the group officiously, set spurs to his own
horse and trotted after him. Lay inga restraining hand
on his fellow Justice's bridle, ‘One moment morel*
he entreated. ‘’Tis best you should know all ere you
return, ^ot onlyatSwarthmoor, at Ulverston church
also, hath this pestilential fellow caused a disturbance.
It was on the Saturday that he arrived at Swarthmoor
Hall, and violently biawlcd with our good Friend
Larapitt during Mistress Fell*s absence from home.'

A shade of relief crossed the Judge's face, ‘ My
wife absent ! I might have sworn to it. The maidens
are too young to have sober judgment.' ‘Nay, but
listen,* continued Sawrey, ‘the day after he came to
the Hall was'tiot only the Sabbath but also a day of
public humiliation. Our good Priest Lampitt, seeing
Mistress Fell suWounded by her family in the pew at
church, trusted, as did we all, that she had sent the

171

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINtS

fellow packing speedily about his business. Alack !
nosuch thing, he was butprowling outside. No sooner
did the congregation sing a hymn than in he came,
and boldly standing on a form, asked leave to speak.
Our worthy Priest, the soul of courtesy, consented.
Then, oh ! the tedious discourse that fell on our
ears, how that the hymn we had sung was entirely un-
suited to our condition, with much talk of Moses and
of John, and I know not what besides, ending up in
no less a place than the Paradise of God ! Naturally,
none of us, gentles, paid much attention. I crossed
my legs and tried to sleep until the wearisome busi-
ness should be ended. When, to my dismay, I was
aroused by our honoured neighbour Mistress Fell
standing upright on the seat of her pew, shrieking with
a loud voice : “We are all thieves, we are all thieves ! ”
This was after the Ranter had finished. While hewas
yet speaking, she continued togazeonhim, so says my
wife, as if she were drinking in every word. But after-
•wards, having loosed this exclamation about thieves
(and she a Justice’s wife, forsooth!) she sat down in
her pew once more and began to weep bitterly.’

‘Yes,’ interrupted Lampitt, who had also come a-
longside by this time, ‘and he continued to pour forth
foul speeches, how that God was come to teach His
people by His own spirit, and to bring them off from
all their old ways and religions and churches and wor-
ships, for that they were all out of the life and spirit,
that they was in that gave them forth. . . . And so on,
until our good friend here,’ indicating S^awrey, ‘being
a J ustice of th e Peace, called out to the churchwardens,
“Take him away, take the fellow away,” Whereat
Mistress Fell must needs rise up agg,ip and say. to
172

‘ BEWITCHED ! ’

the officers, ‘^Why may he not speak as well as any
other? Let him alone 1” 4^dl, willing co humour
her ^

‘Yes, more fool you/ interrupted Sawrey fudely,
^ you must needs echo her, and cry, “Let him alone ! ”
else had I sai'cly and securely clapped him into the
stocks.’

Judge Fell, who had listened with obviously grow-
ing impatie^f ce, now broke away Irom his vociferous
companions. Crying once more, ‘I thank yoUj Sirs,
for your well-meant courtesy, but now I pray you to
excuse me and allow me to hasten to my home,’ he
broke away from the restraining hands laid upon his
bridle and galloped over the sands. HL attendants,
who had been waiting at a little distance just out of
earshot, eagerly joined him, and the three figures
gradually grew smaller and then disappeared into
the distance.

The other group of riders departed on their differ-
ent ways homewards, well satisfied with their day’s
work. Not without a parting shot from fat Captain
Sands a? they reparated. Raising his whip he said
mockingly as he pointed at the Judge’s figure riding
away in urgent haste : ‘ Let us hope he may not find
the Fox too Foxy when he expels him from his earth!

XI. THE

JUDGE’S .RETURN

* The Cross heinsr minded it makes a
separation from all other lovers^ and
brings to God" — g, fox.

‘ Give up to be crossed; that is the
way to please the Lord and to follow
Him in His own will and way^
whose way is the best" — m. fell.

‘ Now here was a time of waitings
here is a time of receivings here is a
time of speaking ; the Holy Ghost
fell upon thems that they spoke the
wonderful things of Godl — G. fox.

'‘Mind and consider well the spirit
of Christ inyous that" she that" s low-
ly in you, thafs just and lo 2 vly in
you: mind this Spirit in you, and
then whither will you run, and for-
sake the Lord of Life ? Will} vu leave
Christ the fountain which should
spring in you and hi4nt for your-
selvesl Shouldyou not abide wi thi n,
and drink of that which springs
freely, and feed on that which is pure,
7n€ek a7id lowly in spirit, thatsoyou
might grow spiritual vieyi into the
same Spirit, to be as Lie is, the sheep
of His Pasture I For as is your
pasture, so are you filled. . . . And
you shall say no more, lam weak
and can do nothing, but all things
through hbn who gives you strength. *

JAMES NAYLER.

XI. THE

JUDGE’S -RETURN

N ot one of the six maidens ever remembered
a home-coming )ver-clouded as was Judge
Fell’s on that thundery afternoon of late
July. Sadder, darker days lay before them in the
years to follow, but none more hhed with unacknow-
ledged dre^d. Wau this sad, stern -looking man, who
dismounted wearily from his horse at the high arched
gate, really their indulgent father? He scarcely
noticed or spoke to them, as he tramped heavily to-
wards the bouse. ‘ He did not even raise an eye to-
wards the window where my mother sits, as she hath
ever sat, to welcome him,’ young Margrett noticed.
The thunder rumbled ominously overhead. The
first big drops fell from the gloomy clouds that had
been gathering for hours; while upstairs, in her
panelled chamber, a big tear splashed on the delicate
cambric needlework that lay between the elder Mar-
garet’s fingers, before she laid it aside and descended
the shallow, oa^en stairs to greet her husband.

Margaret Fell looked older and sadder than on
the afternoon under the yew-trees, only three weeks
before. There was a new shade of care on her smooth
forehead : yet there was a soft radiance about her that
was also new. Even her voice had gentler tones. She
looked as if she had reached a haven, like a stately
ship that, after long tossing in the waves, now feels
itself safely ^chored and at rest.

Happily she has left an account of the Judge’s
return in her ow^4 words, words as fresh and vivid as
if they had been written but yesterday, instead of
N 177

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

more than two hundred and fifty years ago. We will
take up her narrative at tlfe point in Ulverston church
at which Judge Fell broke away from Mr. Justice
Sawrey when he was telling him the same tale from
his point of view, on the glistening sands of the est-
uary of the Leven.

‘And there was one John Sawrey,’ writes Mistress
Fell, ‘ a Justice of Peace and professor, that bid the
church warden take him [George Fox] ai^ay, and he
laid hands on him several times, and took them off
again, and let him alone; and then after awhile he
gave over and he [G. F.] came to our house again
that night. He spoke in the family amongst the ser-
vants, and they were all generally convinced; as Wil-
liam Caton, Thomas Salthouse, Mary Askew, Anne
Clayton, and several other servants. And I was struck
into such a sadness, I knew not what to do, my hus-
band being from home. I saw it was the truth, and
I could not deny it; and I did as the Apostle saith,
“I received truth in the love of it;” and it was opened
to me so clear, that I had never a tittle in piy heart
against it; but I desired the Lord that I might be
kept in it, and then I desired no greater portion.’

‘ He went on to Dalton, Aldingham, Dendron
and Ramside chapels and steeple- bouses, and several
places up and down, and the people followed him
mightily;and abundance were convincedandsawthat
that which he spoke was the truth, but the priests
were in a rage. And about two weeks after James
Nayler and Richard Farnsworth follos^ed him and
enquired him out, till they came to Swarthmoor, and
there stayed awhile with me at our house, and did
me much good; for I was under great heaviness amd
178

THE JUDGE’S RETURN

judgment. But the power of the Lord entered upon
me within about two weeks 4hat he came, and about
three weeks end my husband came home ; and many
were in a mighty rage, and a deal of the captains and
great ones of the country went to meet my then hus-
band as he was coming home, and Informed him “that
a great disaster was befallen amongst his family, and
that they were witches; and that they had taken us
away out of s>iir religion ; and that he must either set
them away, or all the country would be undone.” *
‘So my husband came home, greatly offended;
and any may think what a condition I was like lO be
in, that either I must displease my husband or offend
God; for he was vety much troubled with us all in
the house and family, they had so prepossessed him
against us. But James Nayler and Richard Farns-
worth were both then at our house, and I desired
them both to come and speak to him, and so they did
very moderately and wisely ; but he w^as at first dis-
pleased with them until they told him “ they came in
love and goodwill to his house.” And after that he
had hear3 them speak awhile, he was better satisfied,
and they offered as if they would go away; but I de-
sired them to stay and not go away yet, for George
Fox will come this evening. And I would liave had
my husband to have heard them all, and satisfied him-
self further about them, because they [z\e. the neigh-
bours] had so prepossessed him against them of such
dangerous fearful things in his first coming home.
And then he w^s pretty moderate and quiet, and his
dinner being ready he went to it, and I went in, and
sate me down by him. And whilst I was sitting, the
po\\;er of the Lj>rd seized upon me, and he was struck

179

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

with amazement, and knew not what to think; but
was quiet and still. And the* children were all quiet
and still, and grown sober, and could not play on their
music^c that they were learning; and all these things
made him quiet and still.’

‘ At night George Fox came : and after supper my
husband was sitting in the parlour, and I asked him,
“if George Fox might come in?’^ Andhesaid, “Yes.”
So George came in without any compliment, and
walked into the room, and began to speak presently;
and the family, and James Nayler, and Richard
Farnsworth came all in; and he spoke very excel-
lently as ever I heard him, and opened Christ’s and
the apostles’ practices, which they were in, in their
day. And he opened the night of apostacy since the
apostles’ days, and laid open the priests and their
practices in the apostacy that if all England had been
there, I thought they could not have denied the truth
of these things. And so my husband came to see
clearly the truth of what he spoke, and was very
quiet that night, said no more and went to bed. The
next morning came Lampitt, priest of Ulverston,and
got my husband in the garden, and spoke much to
him there, but my husband had seen so much the
night before, that the priest got little entrance upon
him. . . . After awhile the priest went away ; this was
on the sixth day of the week, about the fifth month
(July) 1652. And at our house divers Friends were
speaking to one another, how there were several con-
vinced hereaways and we could not teji where to get
a meeting: my husband being also present, he over-
heard and said of his own accord,^ “You may meet
here, if you will:” and that was the fir^t /nee ting that
180

THE JUDGE’S RETURN

we had that he offered of his own accord. And then
notice was given that day tnd the next to Friends,
and there was a good large meeting the first day,
which was the first meeting that was at Swarthmoor,
and so continued there a meeting from 165 2 till 169c
[when the present Meeting-house, given by George
Fox, was built]. And my husband went that day to
the steeple-house, and nonewithhim but hisclerkand
his groom tial rid with him ; and the priest and the
people were all fearfully troubled ; but praised be the
Lord, they never got their wills upon us to this day.'

George P'ox in^his Journal also records his first
eventful interview with Judge Fell as follows:

‘I found that the priests and professors and Justice
Sawrey had much incensed Judge Fell against the
truth with their lies ; but when I came to speak with
him I answered all his objections, and so thoroughly
satisfied him by the scriptures that he was convinced
in his judgment. He asked me “if I was that George
Fox whom Justice Robinson spoke so much in com-
mendation of among many of the parliament men?"
I told him I had been with Justice Robinson and
Justice Hotham, in Yorkshire, who were very civil
and loving to me. After we had discoursed a pretty
while together, Judge Fell himself was satisfied also,
and came to see, by the openings of the spirit of God
in his heart, over all the priests and teachers of the
world, and did not go to hear them for some years
before he died. He sometimes wished I was awhile
with Judge Boidshaw to discourse with him.’

This was Judge Bradshaw the regicide, and, com-
ing as it did froms^ch afriend of Cromwell’s as Judge
Fell, the ren^qj-k was probably a high compliment.

181

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

The following year, 1653, George Fox came again
to Swarthmoor, where he says he had ‘great openings
from the Lord, not only of divine and spiritual mat-
ters, Lut also of outward things relating to the civil
government. Being one day in Swarthmoor Hall
when Judge Fell and Justice Benson were talking
of the news in the newsbook, and of the Parliament
then sitting, (called the long Parliament) I was moved
to tell them, “before that day two weeks the Parlia-
ment should be broken up, and the speaker plucked
out of his chair”; and that day two weeks Justice
Benson told Judge Fell that now he saw that George
was a true prophet, for Oliver had broken up the par-
liament.* Although Judge Fell never actually joined
Friends he was their constant protector and helper,
and, in the words of Fox, ‘Awall to the believers.’ If he
did not himself attend the meetings in the great Hall
at Swarthmoor, he was wont to leave the door open as
he sat in his Justice’s chair in his little oak-panelled
study close at hand, and thus hear all that was said,
himself unseen. How entirely his wife had regained
his confidence, and how entirely Lampitt and Sawrey
had failed to poison his mind against her or her new
teacher, is shown by the following letter written about
this time, when the J iidge was away on one of his fre-
quent absences. It is the only letter to Judge Fell
from his wife that has been preserved, but it is ample
assurance that no shadow had dimmed the unclouded
love of this devoted husband and wife.

‘Dear Husband,’ Margaret writes^ ^'My dear love
and tender desires to the Lord run forth for thee. I
have received a letter this day from you, and am very
glad that the Lord carried you on your journey so
182

THE JUDGE’S RETURN

prosperously . . . Dear Heart, mind the Lord above
all, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turn-
ing, and who will overturn all powers that stand be-
fore Him . . . We sent to my dear brother Jar^ies Nay-
ler and he is kept very close and cannot oe suiTered
to have any fire. He is not free to eat of the jailor’s
meat, so they eat very little but bread and water. He
writ to us that they are plotting again to get more
false witnesses to swear against him things that he
never spo^e. I sent him 2 lb., but he took but 5
[shillings?]. They are mightv violent in Westmor-
land and all parts everywhere towards us. They
bid 5 lb. to any hian that will take George anywhere
that they can find him within Westmorland. . . . The
children are all in health, praised be the Lord. George
is not with us now, but he remembered his dear love
to thee. . . .

‘Thy dutiful wife till death,

MARGARET FELL.’

‘Swarthmoor, Feb. 18, 1653.’

Bui: whether Margaret Fell ever entirely forgave
Justice Sawrey for the part he had played in trying
to alienate her husband from her, is, to say the least,
doubtful. Anyhow, later on she wrote of him as ‘ a
catterpillar which shall be swept out of the way.’ And
‘swept out of the way’ he eventually was, some years
later, when it is recorded that ‘he was drowned in
a puddle upon the road coming from York.’ But he
was to ha'^e time and opportunity to do much harm
to Friends, and especially to George Fox, before that
happened, as the next two stories will show.

183

XII. ‘STRIKE AGAIN!’

“ Ulverston consisted of thatched one
storied house^^ many old shops^
gabled buildings standing out to-
wards the street on pillars beneath
which neighbours sheltered and go s-
sipped. On market days these pro-
jections were filled with goods to
tempt gentry and yeomanry to open
their purse-strings. ^ — From '‘Home
Life in North Lonsdalel

^By the year 1654 * 'the man wi th the
leather breeches ” as he ims called^
had become a celebrity throughout
England^ with scattered converts
and adherents everywhere^ but vot-
ed a pest and a terror by the public
authorities jheregular steeple-house
clergy^ whether Presbyterian or In-
dependent .^and the appointed preach-
ers of all the old sects I — d. masson.

^ For in those days the high and
proud professors and persecutors
were generally bitterly set against
the people called Quakers^ when
Presbytery andlndepe 7 idency swim-
med and floated in possession^ and
with their long Lectures against
us cried out^ "These are the Anti-
christs cojiie in the last tunes ’ —

G, WHITEHEAD.

'For in all things he acquitted him-
self like a man, yea^ a strong man^
a new and heavenly -minded manl
— w. PENN of George Fox.

XII. ‘STRIKE AGAIN!’

L ove, wisdom, and Patience will overcome all
that is not of God.' — g. fox.

By the side of even a low mountain the tallest
tower looks small The fells that shelter the old
market town of Ulverston from northerly winds are
not lofty compared with the range of giants that lies
behind thep in the distance, Coniston Old Man,
Sea Fell, Skiddaw, Helvellyn, and their brethren.
But the fells are high enough o make the tall old
Church tower of Ulverston look small and toy-like
as it rises under their shadow above the thatched roofs
of the old town.

SwarthrnoorHall stands on a level plateau on the
other side of Ulverston; and it was from Swarth-
moor Hall, through a wooded glen by the side of the
stream, that George Fox came down to Ulverston
Church, one ‘Lecture Day' at the end of September
1652.

On a ‘ Lecture Day ’ a sermon lasting for several
hours was delivered by an appointed teacher; and
when that was finished, anyone who had listened to
it was free to rise and deliver a message in his turn if
he wished to do so. In those days, as there were no
clocks or watches in churches, the length of the ser-
mon was measured by turning an hour-glass, until all
the sand had run out, a certain number of times.
Children, and perhaps grown-up people too, must
often have \^j;ched the sand with longing eyes when
a sermon of several hours' length was in process.
On this particular day. Priest Lampitt was the ap-
pointed preacher. Lampitt had never forgiven Fox

187

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

for having persuaded so many of his hearers, and es-
pecially the importantladiesofSwarthmoor, toforsake
their Parish Church, and assemble for their own ser-
vice atfhome. His feelings may be imagined, there-
fore, when, his own sermon ended, he saw George
Fox get up and begin to preach in his turn.

George Fox says, ‘On a Lecture Day I was moved
to go to Ulverston steeple-house, where there was an
abundance of professors and priests,"^ /ind people.
And I went up near to Lampitt who was blustering
on in bis preaching, and the Lord opened my mouth
to speak.’

Now among the ‘abundance of people’ who were
present in the Church was that same Mr. Justice
Sawrey,‘theCatterpillar,’ of whom the last two stories
tell. As soon as George Fox opened his mouth and
began to preach, up bustled the Justice to him, with
a patronising air, and said, ‘ Now, my good fellow,
you may have my permission to speak in this Church,
so long as you speak according to the Scriptures.’

Like lightning, George Fox turned round on the
high step where he was standing near to Priest Lam-
pitt, and saw at his elbow the little pompous Justice,
his face flushed, full of fussiness about his own dig-
nity and anxious to arrange everything according to
his own ideas.

George Fox, who felt he had a message from
God to deliver, had no intention of being interrupted
by any man in this way.

* Remember always that by ‘priest’ Georg5'Pox only means
a man of any form of religion who was paid for preaching. Lam-
pitt was probably an Independent. ‘ iVofessors,’ as we have al-
ready seen, are tlie people usually called ‘Puritans, who ‘pro-
fessed ’ or made a great show of being very religious. ,

1 88

‘ STRIKE AGAIN ! ’

‘ I stranged at him/ says Fox, ‘for speaking so to
me!’

‘Stranged’ is an unfamiliar word, no longer used
in modern English. It sounds as if it mer.nt' some-
thing very fierce, and calls up a picture of George
Fox glaring at hii antagonist or trying to shout
him down. In reality it only means that Fox was
astonished at his strange behaviour.

‘I strangled at him and told him that I would speak
according to the Scriptures, and bring the Scriptures
to prove what I had to say, for I had something to say
to Lampitt and to them.’ ‘ You shall do nothing of
the kind,’ said Mr. Justice Sawrey, contradicting his
own words of the moment before, that Fox might
speak so long as he spoke according to the Scrip-
tures.

Fox paid no attention to this injunction, but went
on calmly with his sermon. At first the congregation
listened quietly. But Fox had made a new enemy
and a powerful one. The little Justice would not be
ignored in this way. He whispered to one and an-
other in the congregation, ‘Don’t listen to this fellow.
Why should he air his notions in our fine Church?
Beat him ! Stop his mouth ! Duck him in the pond I
Teach him that the men of Ulverston are sensible
fellows, and not to be led astray by a ranting Quaker 1 ’

These suggestions had their effect. Possibly the
congregation agreed with the speaker. Possibly also,
they knew that the little Justice, though short of stat-
ure, was of l< 5 Eig memory and an ill man to offend.
Moreover, a magistrate’s favour is a useful thing to
have at all times. 'Perhaps if they hunted Mr. Justice
Savyrey’s quarry for him in the daytime, he would be

189

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

more likely to turn a blind eye the next moonlight
night that they were minded to go out snaring other
game, with fur and feathers, in the Justice’s own park!
Anyhdw, faces began to grow threatening as the
Quaker’s discourse proceeded. Presently loud voices
were raised. Still the calm tones flowed on unheed-
ing. At length, clenched fists were raised ; and, at
the sight, the smile on the Justice’s face visibly broad-
ened. Nodding his head emphatically; he seemed
to be saying, ‘On, men, on ! ’ till at length, like sparks
fanned by a bellows, the congregation’s ill-humour
suddenly burst into a flame of rage. When at length
rough hands fell upon the Quaker’s shoulders and set
all his alchemy buttons a-jingling, Mr. Justice Sawrey
leaned against the back of his high wooden pew,
crossed his legs complacently, and laughed long and
loud at the joke. The crowd took this as a sign that
they might do as they chose. They fell upon Fox,
knocked him down, and finally trampled upon him,
under the Justice’s own eyes. The uproar became
so great that the quieter members of the congreg-
ation were terrified, ‘and the people fell over their
seats for fear.’

At length the Justice bethought himself that such
behaviour as this in a church was quite illegal, since a
man had been sentenced, before now, to lose his hand
as a punishment for even striking his neighbour with-
in consecrated walls. He began to feel uneasily tllat
even the excellent sport of Quaker-baiting might be
carried too far inside the Church. He came forward,
therefore, and without difficulty rescued George Fox
from the hands of his tormentors. But he had not
finished with the Quaker yet. Leading Jiim outside
190

‘ STRIKE AGAIN ! ^

theChurchjhe there formally handed him over to the
constables, saying, ‘Take the fellow. Thrash him
soundly and turn him out of the town, ’adding, perhaps,
under his breath, ‘and teach him to behavl with
greater respect hereafter to a Justice of the Peace !’

George Fox describes in his own words what hap-
pened next. ‘They led me,’ says the Journal, ‘about
a quarter of a mile, some taking hold of my collar, and
some by the% arms and shoulders, and shook and
dragged me, and some got hedge-stakes and holme
bushes and other staffs. And many friendly people
that was come to th^ market, and had come into the
steeple-house to hear me, many of them they knocked
down and broke their heads also, and the blood ran
down several people so as I never saw the like in my
life, as I looked at them when they were diagging me
along. And Judge Fell’s son, running after me to
see what they would do to me, they threw him into a
ditch of water and cried, “Knock the teeth out of his
head!”’

Once^ell away from the town, apparently, the con-
stables were content to let their prisoner go, know-
ing that they might trust their fellow-townsmen to
finish the job with right good will. The mob yelled
with joy tofind their prey in their hands at last. With
one accord they fell upon Fox, and endeavoured to
pull him down, much as, at the huntsman’s signal, a
pack of hounds sets upon his four-footed namesake
with a bushy tail. The constables and officers, too,
continued to assist. Giving him some final blows with
willow-rods they thrust Fox ‘amid the rude multitude,
and they then feU'upon me as aforesaid with their
stakes and cly^s and beat me on the head and arms

191

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

and shoulders, until at last,’ their victim says, ‘they
mazed me, and I fell dcfwn upon the wet common.’

The crowd had won! George Fox was down at last !
He la^, bruised and fainting, on the wet moss of the
common on the far side of the town. Yes, there he
lay for a few moments, stunned, bruised, bleeding,
beaten nigh to death. Only for a few moments, no
longer. Very soon his consciousness returned. Find-
ing himself helpless on the watery common with the
savage mob glowering over him, he says, T lay a little
still without attempting to rise. Then suddenly the
power of the Lord sprang through me, and the eternal
refreshings revived me, so that I stood up again in the
eternal power of God, and stretched out my arms
among them all and said with a loud voice: “Strike
again ! Here are my arms, my head, my cheeks ! ” ’

Whatever would he do next? What sort of a man
was this? The rough fellows in the circle around him
insensibly drew back a little, and looked in each other’s
faces with surprise, as they tried to read the riddle of
this disconcerting behaviour. The Quaker vyould not
show fight I He was actually giving them leave to set
upon him and beat him again 1 All in a minute, what
had hitherto seemed like rare sport began to be rather
poor fun.

‘There’s no sense in thrashing a man who doesn’t
strike back! Better leave the fellow alone!’ some of
the more decent-minded whispered to each other in
undertones, and then slunk away ashamed. Only one
man, a mason, well known as the bully of the town,
knew no shame.

‘Strike again, sayest thou, Quaker? ’ he thundered.
‘Hast had none but soft blows hitherto?/ Faith then,
192

‘ STRIKE AGAIN ! ’

I strike in good earnest this time.’ So saying, the
mason brought a thick wooden rule that he was carry-
ing down on the outstretched hand before him, with
^ a savage blow that might have felled an ox. After the
first shock of agonising pain George Fox lost all feel-
ing from his finger-tips right up to his shoulder. When
he tried to draw the wounded hand back to his side
he could not do it. The paralysed nerves refused to
carry the message of the brain.

‘The mason hath made a good job of it this time,’
jeered a mocking voice from the ciowd. ‘The Quaker
hath lost the use of his right hand for ever.’ For ever!
Terrible words. George Fox was but a young man
still. Was he indeed to go through life maimed, with-
out the use of his right hand? The bravest man might
have shrunk from such a prospect; but George Fox
did notshrink, because hedid not happentobethink-
ing of himself at all. His hand was not his own. Not
it alone but his whole body also had been given, long
ago, to the service of his Master. They belonged to
Him. Therefore if that Master should need the right
hand of llis servant to be used in His service, His
Power could be trusted to make it whole.

Thus Fox trusted, and not in vain; since all the
while, no thoughts of vengeance or hatred to those
who had injured him were able to find even a mo-
ment’s lodging in his heart.

‘So as the people cried out, “he hath spoiled his
hand for ever having any use of it more,”i looked at

tT IN THE LOYJ^ OF GOD AND I WAS IN THE LOVE OF
GOD TO ALL THEM THAT HAD PERSECUTED ME. AND
AFTER A WHILE THE'LORD’s POWER SPRANG THROUGH
MY pAND AND^ARM AND THROUGH ME, THAT IN A

o 193

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

MINUTE I RECOVERED MY HAND AND ARM AND
STRENGTH IN THE FACE ^\ND 'SIGHT OF THEM ALL.^

This miracle, as it seemed to them, overawed the
rough‘mob for a moment. But some of the greedier
spirits saw a chance of making a good thing out of
the afternoon’s work for themselves. They came to
Fox and said if he would give them some money they
would defend him from the others, and he should go
free. But Fox would not hear of such a thing. He
‘was moved of the Lord to declare unto them the
word of life, and how they were more like Jews and
heathens and not like Christians.’

Thus, instead of thankfully slinking away and dis-
appearing up the hill by a by-path to the friendly
shelter of Swarthmoor, Fox strode boldly back into
the centre of the town of Ulverston with his perse-
cutors, like a crowd of whipped dogs, following him
at his heels. Yet still they snarled and showed their
teeth at times, as if to say, they would have him yet
if they dared. Right into Ulverston market-place he
came, and a stranger sight the old grey town, with
its thatched roofs and timbered houses, had surely
never seen. In the middle of the market-place the
one other courageous man in the town came up to
him. This was a soldier, carrying a sword.

‘Sir,’ said this gallant gentleman, as he met the
bruised and bleeding Quaker, ‘I am ashamed that
you, a stranger, should have been thus ill-treated
and abused, for you are a man, sir,’ said he.
Fox nodded, and a smile like wintry s unshine stole
over his worn face. Silently he held out his hand.
The soldier grasped it. ‘ In truth, I am grieved,’ he
repeated, ‘grieved and ashamed that y^ou should have
194

‘ STRIKE AGAIN ! ’

been treated like this at Ulverston. Gladly will I assist
you myself as far as i can against these cowards, who
are not ashamed to set upon an unarmed man, forty
►to onr, and drag him dcwnd

‘ No matter ^or that, Friend,’ said Fox, ‘ they have
nopowerto harm me, for the Lord’s power iscverall.’
With these words he turned and crossed the crowded
market-place again, on his way to leave thetown,and
not one of the people dared to touch him.

But, as everyone prefers both to be defended him-
self and to defend others with those weapons in which
he himself puts most trust, the soldier very naturally
followed Fox, in case ‘the Lord’s power’ might also
need the assistance of his trusty sword.

The mob, seeing Fox well protected, turned, like
the cowards they wei e, and fell upon the oib er ‘friendly
people’ who were standing defenceless in the market-
place and beat them instead. Their meanness enraged
the soldier. Leaving Fox, he turned and ran upon the
mob in his turn, his naked rapier shining in his hand.

‘ My trusty sword shall teach these cravens a les-
son at la?t,’ he thought. Quick as he was, Fox was
quicker. He, too, had turned at the noise, and seeing
his defender running at the crowd, and the sunshine
dancing down the steel blade as it gleamed in the air,
he also ran, and dashed up the soldier’s weapon before
it had time to descend. Then taking firm hold of the
man’s right hand, sword and all, ‘ Thou must put up
thysword. Friend, ’he commanded, ‘if thou wilt come
along with me^’ Half sulkily, and wholly disappointed,
the soldier, in spite of himself, obeyed. But he insisted
on accompanying Fox to the outskirts of the town.
‘ You will be safe now. Sir,’ he said, and sweeping his

195

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

plumed hat respectfully on the ground, as he bowed
low to his new friend, the two parted.

Nevertheless, not many days thereafter this very
gallant gentleman paid for his chivalrous conduct.^
No less than seven men fell upon him at once, and
beat him cruelly ‘for daring to take the Quaker’s part.^
‘ For it was the custom of this country to run twenty
or forty people upon one man,’ adds the Journal, with
quiet scorn. ‘ And they fell so upon Friends in many
places, that they could hardly pass the high ways,
stoning and beating and breaking their heads.’

But of the punishment in store for his defender.
Fox was happily ignorant that hot afternoon of the
riot, as he followed the peaceful brook through its
sheltered glen, and so came up again at last, after
his rough handling, to friendly Swarthmoor, where
young George Fell, escaped from his persecutors and
the miry ditch, had arrived before him. ‘And there
they were, dressing the heads and hands of Friends
and friendly people that were broken that day by the
professors and hearers of Priest Lampitt,’ writes Fox.

‘ And my body and arms were yellow, black and
blue with the blows and bruises I received among
them that day,’

XIII. MAGNANIMITY

^Magnanimity . . . includes all that
belongs to a g^eat soul. A high
and mighty Courage, an invincible
Patience, an immovable Grandeur;
which is above the reach of Inju7ies;
a high and lofty Spirit allayedwith
the sweetness of Courtesy and Re-
spect : a deep and stable Resolution
founded on Humilitie without any
Baseness ... a generous condd-
ence, a^id a great inclination to
Heroical deeds ; all these conspire
to compleat it, with a severe and
mighty expectation of Bliss incom-
prehensible. . . .

'‘A inag7tanimous sold is always a-
wake. The whole globe of the Earth
is but a nut shell in comparison with
its enjoyments. The Sun is its Lamp,
the Sea Us Fishpond, the Stars its
Je7vels, Men, Angels, its attenda7ice,
and God alone its sovei'eign delight
and supreme complacency. . . .
Nothing is great if compared 7viih \
a Magnafihtious soul hut the Sove-
reign Lord of all the. Worlds I —
REV. THOMAS TRAHERNE {A Cofl-
iemporary of G. Fox'),

‘ They threw stones upon me that
7i>eresog7'eat, that I did admire they
did not kill us; but so mighty was the
i}ower of the I^ord, that they tvere as
a nut or a bean to my thinkmgi —
THOM A S BRIGGS, I 6 8 5 .

XIII. MAGNANIMITY

B eloved Swarthmoor ! Dear home, where
kind hearts abode, where gentle faces and
tender hands were ever ready to welcome
and bind up the wounds, both visible and invisible, of
any persecuted guest in those troubled times. Surely,
after his terrible experiences on the day of the riot at
Ulverston, George Fox would yield to the entreaties of
his entertainers, and allow himself to be persuaded to
rest in peac^ under the shadow of the Swarthmoor
yew-trees, until the bloodthirsty fury against all who
bore the name of Quaker, and against hims’elf in par-
ticular, should hare somewhat lessened in the neigh-
bourhood ? Far from it. To ‘ Flee from Storms’ was
never this strong man’s way. * G entle reeds and delic-
ate grasses may bow as the storm-wind rushes over
them. The sturdy oak-tree, with its tough roots grap-
pling firmly underground, stubbornly faces the blast.
George Fox, ‘ ever Stiff as a Tree,’ by the admission
even of his enemies, barely waited for his ‘ yellow,
black and blue’ bruises to disappear before he came
forth a^in to encounter his foes. Certain priests had
however taken advantage of this short enforced ab-
sence to ‘ put about a prophecy ’ that he had dis-
appeared for good, and ^ that within a year all these
Quakers would be utterly put down.’ Great, therefore,
must have been their chagrin to hear, only a short
fortnight after the Lecture Day at Ulverston, that the
hated ‘Man in Leather Breeches’ was off once more
on his dangerous career.

Fox’s companion on this journey was that same

* ‘ Flee from Storms ’ is a motto in the note-book of Leonardo
da Vinci. *

199

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

James Nayler who had followed him on his first visit
to Swarthmoor, a few wqeks previously. Nayler was
one of the most brilliantly gifted of all those early
comrajies of George Fox, who were hereafter to earn
the name of ‘ the Valiant Sixty.^ Clouds and sorrows
were to separate the two friends in years to come, but at
this time they were united in heart and soul, both alike
given up to the joyful service of ‘ Publishing Truth.^
The object of their journey was to visit another recent
convert, James Lancaster by name, in liis home on
the Island of Walney that lies off the Furness coast.

On the way thither the travellers spent one night
at a small town on the mainland called Cockan. Here,
as usual, they held a meeting with the inhabitants of
the place, in order to proclaim the message that poss-
essed them. Their words had already convinced one
of their hearers, and more converts to the Truth might
have followed, when suddenly, at a low window of
the hall where they were assembled, a man’s figure
appeared, threatening the audience with a loaded
pistol which he carried in his hand. As this pistol
was pointed, first at one and then at andther of
George Fox’s listeners, all the terrified people sprang
to their feet and rushed through the doors of the
hallasfast as their legs could carry them. Their alarm
was natural; probably most, if not all of them, had
seen fire-arms used in grim earnest before this, for the
period of the Civil Wars was too recent to have faded
from anyone’s memory.

‘ I am not after you, ye timid sheep,’ shouted the
man with the pistol as the scared people fled past him.
‘It is that Deceiver who is leading you all astray that
I have to do with. Come out and meet me, George
200

MAGNANIMITY

Fox/ he shouted, * if you call yourself a Man/

There was no need to ^sk twice. ‘ Here I am,
Friend,' answered a quiet voice, as the well-known
figure, in its wide white hr.t, long coat, leather brfeches
and doublet, and girdle with alchemy buttons, ap-
peared standing in the doorway. Then, passing calmly
through it, George Fox drew up scarce three paces
from his assailant — his body making a large target at
close range that it would be impossiole to miss. The
frightened people paused in their flight to watch. Were
they going to see the Quaker si lin ? The stranger
raised his pistol; he aimed carefully. Not a muscle of
Fox's countenance* quivered. Notan eyelash moved.
The trigger snapped. . . .

Nothing happened! The pistol did not go off. As
if by a miracle the Quaker was saved.

Seeing this wonderful escape of their leader, some
of the other men’s courage returned. They rushed
back to assist him. They threw themselves upon his
assailant and wrenched the pistol from his hand, vow-
ing he should do no further mischief. Fox, seeing
in his adversary, not an enemy who had just sought
his life, but a fellow-man with a ‘Seed of God’ hid-
den somewhere within him and therefore a possible
soul to be won, was ‘moved in the Lord’s power to
speak to him ; and he was struck with the Lord’s power ’
(small wonder!) ‘so that he went andhid himself in a
cellar and trembled for fear.

‘And so the Lord’s power came over them all,
though there^was a great rage in the country.’

The Journal continues (but it was written many
years later, remember, when the account of what had
happened could not bring anyone into trouble): ‘And

201

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

ye next morning I went over in a boat to James Lan*
caster’s, and as soon as f came to land there rushed
out about forty men, with staffs, clubs, and fishing-
poles,, and fell upon me with them, beating, punch-'
ing, and thrust me backwards into the sea. And when
they had thrust me almost into the sea, I stood up
and went into the middle of them again, but they all
laid on me again and knocked me down and mazed
me. And when I was down and came to myself, I
looked up and saw James Lancaster’s wife throwing
stones at my face, and her husband lying over me, to
keep the stones and blows off me. For the people had
persuaded James’s wife that I had bewitched her hus-
band, and had promised her that if she would let them
know when I came hither they would be my death.

‘So at last I got up in the power of God over them
all, and they beat me down into the boat. And so
James Lancaster came into the boat to me and so he
set me over the water.

‘And James Nayler we saw afterwards that they
were beating of him. For while they were beating of
me, he walked up into a field, and they neveV minded
him till I was gone, and then they fell upon him, and
all their cry was “Kill him!” “Kill him 1” When I
was come over to the town again, on the other side
of the water, the townsmen rose up with pitchforks,
flails, and staves to keep me out of the town, crying,
“Killhim! knock him on the head! bring the cartand
carry him to the churchyard.” And so they abused
me and guarded me with all those weapons a pretty
way out of the town, and there at last, the Lord’s
power being over them all, they left me. Then James
Lancaster went back again to look for James Nayler.
202

MAGNANIMITY

So I was alone and came to a ditch of water and
washed me, for they had aM dirted me, and wet and
mired my clothes, my hands and m.y face.

‘I walked a matter of three miles to TJhomas
Hutton's, where Thomas Lawson the priest lodged,
who was convinced. And I could hardly speak to
them when I came in I was so bruised. And so I told
them where I had left James Naylcr, and they went
and took each of them a horse, and brought him
thither that night. And I went to bed, but I was so
weak with bruises that I was not able to turn me.
And the next day they hearing of it at Swarthmoor,
they sent a horse for me. And as I was riding the
horse knocked his foot against a stone and stumbled,
so that it shook me so and pained me, as it seemed
worse to me than all the blows, my bod / was so tor-
tured. So I came to Swarthmooi, and my body was
exceedingly bruised.'

Even within the sheltering walls of Swarthmoor,
this time persecution followed. Justice Sawrey had
not yet forgiven the Quaker for his behaviour on
the day of the not. He must have further punish-
ment. So right up to Swarthmoor itself came con-
stables with a warrant signed by two Justices (Sawrey
of course being one of them), that a certain man
named George Fox was to be apprehended as a dis-
turber of the peace. And clapped into gaol George
Fox would have been, wounded and bruised as he
was, in spite of all that his gentle hostesses could do
to prevent had it not happened that, just as the
constables arrived to execute this order, the master
of the house, good Judge Fell himself, must needs
rectum once more, in the very nick of time, home to

203

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Swarthmoor. His mere presence was a defence.

He had been away again on circuit all this time
that George Fox had been so cruelly treated in the
neighbourhood, and had therefore known nothing of '
the rioting during his absence. Now that he was back
at home again, straightway everything went well.
The roof seemed to grow all at once more sheltering,
the walls of the old hall to become thicker and more
able to protect its inmates, when once the master of
the house was safely at home once more.

The six girls ran up and down stairs more lightly,
smiling with relief whenever they met each other
in the rqoms and passages. Long afterw^ards, in the
troubled years that were to follow, when there w^as
no indulgent father to protect them and their mother
and their friends from the bitter blast of persecution,
many a time did the maidens of Swarthmoor recall
that day. They remembered how, weeping, they had
run down to the high arched gate of the orchard to
meet their father, and to tell him what was a-doing
up at the Hall. Thus they drew near the house, the
Judge’s dark figure half hidden among his muslined
maidens, even as the dark old yews are hidden in
spring by the snowy-blossomed apple-trees. When
they saw the Judge him self coming towards them, the
constables drawn up in the courtyard began to look
mighty foolish. They approached with gestures or
respect, giving a short account of what had happened
at Walney, and holding out the warrant, signed by
two justices, as an apology for their pres,ence at Judge
Fell’s own Hall during his absence.

All their excuses availed them little. Judge Fell
could look stern enough when he chose, and now his
204

MAGNANIMITY

eyes flashed at this invasion of his home.

‘What brings you here, ♦men? A warrant for the
apprehension of George Fox, my guest} Are my
brotl.er Justices not aware then that I am ajustice
too, and Vice-Chancellor of the county to boot?
Under this roof a man is safe, were he fifty times a
Quaker. But, since ye are here’ (this with a nod and
a wink, as the constables followed the Judge up the
flagged path and by a side door into his oak-panelled
study), ‘ sinie ye are here, men, I will give you other
warrants a-plenty to execute instead. Those riotous
folk at Walney Island are well knowii to me of old.
It is high time the\ were punished. Take this, and
see that the ringleaders who assaulted iriy guest are
themselves clapped into Lancaster Gaol forthwith.’

Well pleased to get olf with nothing but a repri-
mand, the constables departed, and carried out their
new mission with right good will. The rioters were
apprehended, and some of them were forced to flee
from the country. In time James Lancaster’s wife
came to understand better the nature of the ‘witch-
craft’ tRat George Fox had used upon her husband.
She too was ‘convinced of Truth.’ Later on, after she
had herself become a Friend, she must often have
looked back with remorse tothesadday whenherhus-
band had been forced todefend his loved and revered
teacher with his own body from her blows and stones.

Meanwhile at Swarthmoor there had been great
rejoicing over the discomfiture of the constables. No
sooner had J:hey departed down the flagged path than
back flitted the bevy of girls again into the study, until
the small room was full to overflowing. It was like
seping a company of fat bumble-bees, their portly

205

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

bodies resplendent in black and gold, buzz heavily
out of a room, and a gay flight of pale-blue and lemon
butterflies flit back in their places. All the daughters
fell uppn their father, Margaret, Bridget, Isabel,
Sarah, Mary, and Susanna; there they all were! tug-
ging off his heavy riding-boots and gaiters, putting
away the whip on the whip-rack, while little Mary
perched herself proudly on his knee and put up her
face for a kiss; and, all the time, such a talk went
on as never was about Friend George Fox and the
sufferings he had undergone, each girl telling the
story over and over again.

‘Now, now, maids said the kind father at last,
‘I have heard enough of your chatter. It is time for
you to depart and send Mr. Fox hither to me himself.
^Tis a stirring tale, even told by maidens’ lips; I would
fain hear it at greater length from the man himself.
He shall tell me, in his own words, all that he hath
suffered, and the vile usage he hath met with at the
hands of his enemies.’

A few minutes later, a steady step was heard cross-
ing the hall and ascending the two shallow stkirs that
led to the Justice’s private sanctum. As George Fox
entered the room Judge Fell rose from his seat at
the writing-table to receive his guest, and clasped
his hand with a hearty greeting.

The study at Swarthmoor is only a small room;
but when those two strongmen were both in it together,
facing each other with level brows and glances of un-
clouded trust, the small room seemed suddenly to
grow larger and more spacious. It was swept through
by the wide free airs of heaven, where full-grown spirits
can meet and recognise one another unhindered. They
206

MAGNANIMITY

disagreed often, these two determined, powerful men.
They owned different loyaltios and held different opin-
ions; but from the day they first met to the day they
•Jiarted they respected and trusted one another wholly,'
and for this each man in his heart gave thanks to
God.

George Fox began by asking his host how his af-
fairs had prospered; but when, these enquiries an-
swered, the Judge in his turn questioned his guest of
the rough usage he had met with both at Uiverston
and in the Island of Walney, to hit surprise no details
were forthcoming. Flad the Judge not had full par-
ticulars from his daughters as well as from the con-
stables, he would have thought that nothing of much
moment had occurred. George Fox apparently took
no interest in the subject; the most he would say, in
answer to his host's repeated enquiries, was that ‘ the
people could do no other, in the spirit in which they
were. They did but show the fruits of their priest's
ministry and their profession and religion to be wrong.'

‘ 1' faith, Margaret, thy friend is a right generous
man,’ the good Judge remarked to his wife, that same
night, a few hours later, when they were at length
alone together in their chamber. The festoons of
interlaced roses and lilies, carved in high relief on the
high black oak fireplace, shone out clearly in the glow
of two tall candles above their heads.

Tn truth, dear Heart,' he continued, taking his
wife's hand in his, and drawing her fondly to him,
4n truth, thp^gh I said not so to him, the Quaker
doth manifest the fruits of his religion to be right,
by his behaviour to his foes. All stilf and bruised
thqugh he was, he made nothing of his injuries.

207

A BOOK OF QAKEUR SAINTS

When I would have enquired after his hurts, he
would only say the Power of the Lord had surely
healed him. for the rest, he made nothing of
IT, Al^^D SPOKE as A MAN WHO HAD NOT BEEN CON^
CERNED.*

XIV. MILES

HALHEAD AND THE
HAUGHTY LADY

‘ Many a notable occurrence Miles
Halhead had in his life. . . .
But his going thus often from home
was a great crois to his wife ^ who in
the first year of his change^ not being
of his persuasion^ zvas often much
troubled in her mind.^ and zvould
often say from discontent, “ Would
to God Iliad married a drunkard,
then I might have found him at the
alehouse; but nozo I cannot tell where
to find my husband! ’ — sew el.

To Friends — To take care of such
as suffer for owning the Truth.

* A nd that if any friends be oppressed
any manner of way, others may take
care to help them: and that all may
be as one family, building up one
another and helping one another I

*A nd, friends, go not in to the aggra-
vating part to strive ivithit, lest you
do hurt to your souls, and run into
the same nature; for patience ^
MUST GET THE VICTORY, and it
answers to that of God in everyone
and will bring everyone from the
contrary. So let your temperance
and moderation and patience be
known to alll — george fox.

^Non tristabit jiistum quidquid si
accederiti

‘ Whatever happens to the righteous
man it shall not heavy himi —
RICH A RD ROLLE. I 3 4 9 .

XIV. MILES

HALHEAD.AND THE
.HAUGHTY LADY

*

A PIAIN, simple man was Miles Halhead, the
husbandman of Mountjoy. Ten years older
than Fox was he, and wise withal, so that
men wondered to see him forsake his home and leave
wife and child a" the call ofthe Ouaker's preaching, and
go forth inst<*ad to become a preacher of the Gospel.

Yet, truth to tell, the change was natural and easily
explained. All his life Mill's had had to do with seeds
buried in theground. Therefore when he heard George
Fox preach at his home near Gnderbarrow in West-
morland, telling all men to consider ‘that as the fal-
low ground in their field.s must be ploughed up before
it would bear seed to them, so must the fallow ground
of their hearts be ploughed up before they could bear
seed to God,’ Miles’ own past experience as a hus-
bandman bore witness to the truth of this doctrine.
His whole nature sprang forward to receive it; and
thus, in*a short v hile, he was mightily convinced.

Now at that time there were, as we know, many
companies of Seekers scattered up and down the
pleasantWestmorland dales. Miles himself had been
one of such a group, but now, having found that which
he had aforetime been a-seeking, nought was of
any value to him, but that his old companions should
likewise cease to be Seekers, and becomealso in their
turn Finder^ ^ Yet Miles wondered often how such
an one as he should be able to convince them. For he
was neither skilful nor ready of tongue, nor of a com-
manding presence like Friend George Fox, but only

211

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

a simple husbandman. Still he was wary in his dis-
course, from his long watching of the faces of Earth
and Sky — full also he was of a most convincing sil-
ence; r nd, though as yet he had proved it not, staunc]?^
to suffer for his faith. It was said of him that ‘his
Testimony was plaine and powerful, he being r plain
simple man.’

Thus Miles Halhead began to preach the Gospel,
at first only in the hamlets and valleys round his home
at Underbarrow near to Kendal. But one day when
the daffodils were all abloom, and blowing their golden
trumpets silently beside the sheltered streams, it came
to him that he must take a further journey, and must
follow the golden paths of the daffodils over hill and
vale, until at the end of this street of gold he should
come to Swarthmoor Hall; that there he might assist
his friends at their Meeting, and with them be strength-
ened and have his soul refreshed.

A walk of seventeen miles or so lay before him, and
an easy journey it should prove in this gay springtime,
though in winter, when the snow lay drifted on the
uplands, it would have been another matter, lie could
have travelled by the sheltered road that runs through
the valley. It being springtime, however, and a
sunny day when Miles set out from his home, he
chose for pure pleasure to go by the fells. First,
he travelled across the Westmorland country till he
came to the lower end of Lake Winandermere, where
the hills lie gently round like giants’ children, being
not yet full grown into giants themselves with brows
that touch the sky, as they are at the upper end of
that same shining lake. Then, leaving Winandermere,
across the Furness fells he came, keeping eve,r on
212

THE HAUGHTY LADY

his right hand the Old Man of Coniston, who, with
his head for the most part wiapped in clouds, standeth
yet, as he hatli stood for ages, the Guardian of all
^hat ’•egion.

. Thus at length, as Miles journeyed, he came within
sigh;., of the promontory of Furness, that lies encircled
by the'oea, even as a babels head lies in the crook of
a woman’s elbow. Seeing this, Miles’ heart rejoiced,
for he knew that his journey’s end was in sight, and
he tramped ^long blithely and without fear.

Suddenly, on the path at son.e distance ahead of
him, he saw a patch of brilliant gieen and purple com-
ing tov.'ards him — a gay figure more likely to be met
with in the streets or London than on those lonely
fells. Miles thought to himself as it drew nearer, ‘’Tis
awornan!’ then, ‘Nay, it is surely a great Thistle com-
ing towards me ; no woman would wear garments such
as those in this lonely place.’ As he shaded his eyes
the better to see what might be approaching, his mind
ran back to the first sermon he had ever heard George
Fox preach, on his first visit to Underbarrow, when
he saidj ‘That a'i people in the Fall were gone from
the image of God, righteousness and holiness, and
were degenerated into the nature of beasts, of serp-
ents, of tall cedars, of oaks, of bulls and of heifers.’. . .
‘Some were in the nature of dogs and swine, biting
and rending; some in the nature of briars, thistles and
thorns; some like the owls and dragons in the night;
some like the wild asses and horses snuffing up the
wind; and ^ome like the mountains and rocks, and
crooked and rough ways.’ ‘ I was not certain of his
meaning when I first heard him utter these words,
siinple Miles thought to himself, ‘but now that I see

213

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

thisfineThistle coming towards me, I begin to under-
stand him. Haply it is but a Thistle in outer seeming,
and carries within the nature of a Lily or a Rose.’

Even as he thought of this, the Thistle came yel;^
nearer, and when he could see it more plainly he fear;<0
that neither Lily nor Rose was there, but a T-nstle
full of prickles in very truth. It was indeed a v!oman,
but clad in more gorgeous raiment than Miles had
ever seen. Green satin was her robe, slashed with pale
yellow silk, marvellous to behold. But L was the hat
that drew Miles’ gaze, for though newly come to be a
Quaker preacher, he had been a husbandman long
enough to be swift to notice the garb of all growing,
living things, whether they were flowers or dames.
Truly the hat was marvellous, of a bright purple satin,
and crowned with such a tuft of tall feathers that the
wearer’s face could scarcely be seen beneath its shade.
Dressed all in gaudy style was this fine Madam ; and,
as she passed Miles, she tilted up her head and drew
her skirts disdainfully together, lest they should be
soiled by his approach. Although the lady appeared
to see him not, but to be gazing at the sky, ‘she was
in truth well aware of his presence, and awaited even
hungrily a lowly obeisance from him, that should as-
sure her in her own sight of her own importance. For
of no high-born lineage was this flaunting dame, no
earl’s or duke’s daughter, else perhaps she had been
too well aware of her own dignity and worth to insist
upon others acknowledging it. She was but the young
wife of the old Justice, Thomas Preston,^.and a plain
Mistress, like Miles’ own simple wife at home, in spite
of her gay garments and flaunting airs. But the fact
that she had newly come to live at Holker Hall, the
214

THE HAUGHTY LADY

finest mansion in all that country-side, had uplifted
her in her own sight, and puffed her out with pride,
sending her forth at all hours into unseasonable places
^ shew off her fine new London clothes.

Therefore she paused a little as she passed*Miles,
waitV^ for him to doff his hat and bend his knee, and
declar^ himself in all lowliness her.servant. ButMiles
had never a thought of doing this. Though he was
but newly turned Quaker, right well he remembered
hearing Geoi^e Fox say —

‘Moreover, when the Lord sei t me forth into the
world, He forbade me to put off mvliat to any — high
or low — and I was required to “thee” and “thou”
all men and women, without any respect to rich or
poor, great or small. And as I travelled up and down,
I was not to bid people “Good-morrow,” or “Good-
evening,” neither might I bow or scrape with the
leg to anyone, and this made the sects and the pro-
fessors to rage.’

Miles, too, having learnt this lesson and made it
his own, passed by the lady in all soberness and quiet
ness, talfingnornore notice of her than if she had been
one of those dames painted on canvas by the late
King’s painter, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, which, truth
to tell, she mightily resembled. The haughty fair one
seeing this, as soon as he had fully passed and she
could no longer delude herself with the hope that the
longed-for salute was coming, was vastly and mightily
incensed. It was not her hat alone that was thistle

colour then: her face, her forehead, her neck all

• •

blazed and burned in one purple flush of rage. Only
her cheeks stayed a changeless crimson, and that for
a very excellent reason, easy to guess. Violently she

215

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

turned herself to a serving-man who was following in
her train, following so humbly, and being so much
hidden by Madam’s fallals and furbelows, that until
that m oment Miles had not even seen that he was

‘Back, sirrah!’ she said in a loud, angry
speaking to the man as if he had been a dg/^} or a
horse, ‘back with thy staff and beat that unmannerly
knave till thou hast taught him ’twere well he should
learn to salute his betters.’

The servant was tired of following Kis lady like a
lap-dog, and attending to all her whims and whimsies.
Scenting sport more nearly to his liking, he obeyed,
nothing loath.' He fell upon Miles and beat him
lustily and stoutly, expecting every moment that he
would resist or beg for mercy.

Mistress Preston meanwhile, having turned full
round, watched the thwacking blows, and counted
each one as it fell, with a smile of pleasure. But her
smile speedily became an angry frown, for Miles, well
knowing to whom his chastisement was due, paid no
heed to the serving-man, let him lay on never so
soundly, but turned himself round under th^ blows,
and cried out in a loud voice to her: ‘Oh, thou Jeze-
bel, thou proud Jezebel, canst thou not permit and
suffer the servant of the Lord to pass by thee quietly?’

Now at that word ‘Jezebel,’ Mistress Preston’s
anger was yet more mightily inflamed against Miles,
for she knew that he had discovered the reason why
her cheeks had remained pink, and flushed not thistle
purple like the rest of her countenance^ Even the
serving-man smiled to himself, a mocking smile, and
hummed in a low voice, as he continued to lay the
blows thickly on Miles, a ditty having this refrain —

?i6

THE HAUGHTY LADY

^Jezebel, the proud Queen,

Painjted hv face.’

He did not suppose that his mistress would recognise
^he tune; but recognise it she did, and it increased
4 Wnger yet more, if that were possible. She flung
o^^^l^th hands in a fury, as if she would herself have
struck ^t Miles, then, thinking him not fit for her
touch, she changed her mind, and spat full in hisface.
Oh, what a savage Thistle was that woman, and worse
far than any^fhistle in her behaviour) Loudly, too,
she exclaimed, T scorn to fall down at thy \/ordsl'
Her meaning ii saying this is not fully clear, but it
may be, as Miles bad called her Jezebel, she meant
that no one should ever cast her down from her high
estate, as Jezebel was cast down from the window in
the Palace, whence she mocked at Jehu. This made
Miles testify yet once more — ‘Thou proud Jezebel,'
said he, ‘thou that hardenest thine heart and brazen-
est thy face against the Lord and His servant, the
Lord will plead with thee in His own time and set in
order before thee the things thou hast this day done
to His servant.'

By this time the lady's lackey had at length stopped
his beating, not out of mercy to Miles, but simply be-
cause his arm was weary. Y et he still kept humming
under his breath another verse of the same ditty,
ending —

‘Jezebel, the proud Queen,

’Tired her hair !’

Miles, therefore, being loosed from his hands,
parted from f)oth mistress and man, and left them
standing without fliore words and himself passed on,
bruised and buffeted, to continue his journey in sore

217

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

discomfort of body until he came to Swarthmoor.

Arrived at that gracious home, his friends com-
forted him and bound up his aching limbs, as indeed
they were well accustomed to do in those days, wheiy
the guests who arrived at Swarthmoor had too ofi^
been sorely mishandled. Even to this day, in aX^the
lanes around, may be seen the walls comp(6sed of
sharp, grey, jagged stones, over which is creeping a
covering of soft golden moss. So in those old days
of which I write, men, aye and women to6, often came
to Swarthmoor torn andbleeding, perhaps sometimes
with anger in their hearts (though Miles Halhead
was not of these), and all alike found their inward and
outward wounds staunched and assuaged by the
never-failing sympathy of kindly hearts, and hands
more soft than the softest golden moss.

Thus Miles Halhead was comforted of his friends
at Swarthmoor, and inwardly refreshed. Yet the mat-
ter of his encounter with the haughty lady, and of her
prickly thistle nature, rested on his mind, and he could
not becontent without givingher yet one more chance
to doff her prickles and become a sweet and Vragrant
flower in the garden of the Lord. Therefore, three
months later, being continually urged thereunto by
‘the true Teacher which is within,’ he determined to
take yet another journey and come himself to Holkei
Hall, and ask to speak with its mistress and endeavour
to bring her to a better mind. Thither then in due
course he came. Now a mansion surpassing grand
is Holker Hall, the goodliest in all that country-side
And a plain man and a simple, as has ?)een said, was
Miles Halhead the husbandman of Mountjoy, even
among the Quakers — who were none of them gay j^al-
218

THE HAUGHTY LADY

lants. Nevertheless, being full of a great courage
though small in stature, allVeary and travel-stained
as he was, to Holker Hall Miles Halhead came. He
^would not go to any back door or side door, ^seeing
tlS^his errand was to the m 'stress of the stately build-
ing. iHe walked therefore right np the broad avenue
till he okme to the front entrance, with its grand port-
ico, where a king had been welcomed before now.

As luck would have it, the door stood open as the
Quaker apprbached, and the mistress of Holker Hall
herself happened to be passing through the hr 11 be*
hind. She paus^ d a moment to look through the
open door, intending most likely to mock at the odd
figure she saw approaching. But on that instant she
recognised Miles as the man who had called her Jeze-
bel. Now Miles at first sight d’d not recognise her,
and was doubtful if this could be the haughty Thistle
lady he sought, or if it were not a Lily in very truth.
For Mistress Preston was clad this hot day in a lily-
like frock of white clear muslin, all open at the neck
and short enough to show her ankles and little feet,
and tie(J with a blue ribbon round the waist, a garb
most innocent to look upon, and more suited to a girl
in her teens than to the Justice's wife, the buxom
mistress of Holker Hall.

Therefore Miles, not recognising her, did ask her
if she were in truth the woman of the house. To
which she, seeing his uncertainty, answered lyingly:
‘No, that I am not, but if you would speak with
Mistress Pr^tpn, I will entreat her to come to you.’

Even as the words left her lips. Miles was sensible
that she was speaking falsely, seeing how, even under
the .paint, her cheeks took on a deeper hue. And

219

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

she, ever mindful that it was that same man who had
called her Jezebel, went ibto the house and returning
presently with another woman, declared that here was
Mistre;ss Preston, and demanded what was his wi^’
with her. No sooner had she spoken a second ti^fe
than it was manifested to Miles with perfect cle^^ess
that she herself and none other was the wo^han he
sought. Wherefore, in spite of her different dress and
girlish mien, he said to her, ‘Woman, howdarest thou
lie before the Lord and His servant?’ ^

And she, being silent, not speaking a word, he pro-
ceeded, ‘Woman, hear thou what the Lord’s servant
hath to say unto thee, — O woman, harden not thy
heart against the Lord, for if thou dost. He will cut
thee off in His sore displeasure ; therefore take warn-
ing in time, and fear the Lord God of Heaven and
Earth, that thou mayest end thy days in peace.’
Having thus spoken he went his way; she, how proud
soever, not seeking to stay him nor doing him any
harm, but standing there silent and dumb under the
tall pillars of the door, being withheld and stilled by
something, she knew not what.

Yet her thistle nature was not changed, though,
for that time, her prickles were blunted. It chanced
that several years later, when George Fox was a pris-
oner at Lancaster, this same gay madam came to him
and ‘belched out many railing words,’ saying among
the rest that ‘his tongue should be cut off, and he be
hanged.’ Instead of which, it was she herself that was
cutoff and died not long after ina miserable condition.

Thus did Mistress Preston of Holker Hall refuse
to bow her haughty spirit, yet the matter betwixt her
and Miles ended not altogether there. For it hap-

220

THE HAUGHTY LADY

pened that another April day, some three springs
after Miles Halhead had encountered her the first
time, as he was again riding fromSwarthmoor towards
iis home near Underbarrow, and again being come
nc^ to Holker Hall, he met a man unknown to him
by s^jj^t. This person, as Miles was crossing a
mead(^ full of daffodils that grew beside a stream,
would not let him pass, as he intended, but stopped
and accosted him. ‘Friend,^ said he to Miles, T have
something to say to you which hath lain upon me
this long time. I am the man that about three years
ago, at the comn and of my mistress, did beat you
very sore; for which T have been very troubled, more
than for anything which evei I did in all my life:
for truly night and day it hath been in my heart that
I did not well in beating an innocent man that never
did me any hurt or harm. I pray you forgive me
and desire the Lord to forgive me, that I may be at
peace and rest in my mind.^

To whom Miles answered, ‘Truly, friend, from
that time to this day I have never had anything in
my heart towards either thee or thy mistress but love.
May God forgive you both. As for me, I desire that
it may not be laid to your charge, for you knew not
what you did.^ Here Miles stopped and gave the
man his hand and forthwith went on his way; and
the serving-man went on his way ; both of them
with a glow of brotherhood and fellowship within
their hearts. While the daffodils beside the stream
looked up with sunlit faces to the sun, as they blew
on their golden trumpets a blast of silent music, for
joy that ancien^ injury was ended, and that in its
stead goodwi)! had come.

221

XV. SCATTERING
THE SEED

* As early as 1654 sixty-three min-
isters^ with their headquarters at
Swarthmoor^ atyi undoubtedly un-
der central control^ we7'e travelling
the country upon “ TrutHs poniesP*
JOHN WILHELM ROW NT REE,

It is interesting to note and profit-
able to remember^ how large a paid
these sturdy shepherds and husband-
men^ from U7ider the shade of the
great mountains^ had in preaching
the doctrmes of the Imvard Light
and of Gods revelation of Himself
to every seeking soul, in the softer a nd
more settled count 7des of the Southl
THOMAS HODGKIN.

^ Some Speak to the co7iscience ; some
plough and break the clods ; some
weed out, and some sow; some wait
that fowls devour not the seed. But
wait all for the gathermg of the
shfiple-hearted ones I ... 1651 .

Hrie?tds, spread yourselves almoad,
that you may be se?'viceable for the
Lord and His Truth I 1654 .
'‘Love the Truth 77iore than all, and
go 071 in the mighty power of God,
as good soldiers of Christ, well-fixed
in His glorious gospel, and in His
word and power ; that you may
know Hhn, the life and salvatio7i
and bring up others into it I —
G. FOX.

‘ Go ! Set the 7vhole wo 7 dd 07 i fi7:ecnd
in flames r — ignatius loyola.
{To one whom he sent on a distant
mission.)

XV. SCATTERING
THE SEED-

I N Springtime the South of England is aPrimrose
Country. Gay carpels of primroses are spread
\in the woods; shy primroses peep out like stars
in sheli|red hedgerows; vain primroses are stooping
down to look at their own faces in pools and streams,
there are primroses, primroses everywhere. But in
the North of^ England their ‘paly gold’ used to be
a much rarer treasure. True, there were always a few
primroses to be fo*md in fortunate spots, if you knew
exactly where to look for them; but they were not
scattered broadcast over the country as they are fur-
ther South.

Therefore, North Country children never took
primroses as a matter of course, they did not tear them
up roughly, just for the fun of gathering them, drop
them heedlessly the next minute and leave them on
the road to die. North Country children used their
precious holiday time to seek out their favourite flowers
in their tare hiding-places.

‘ I’ve found one 1 ’ ‘So have I ! ’ ‘ There they are ;
two, three, four, — lots!’ ‘I see them 1’ The air would
be full of delighted exclamations as the children scam-
pered ofif, short legs racing, rosy cheeks flushing,
bright eyes glowing with eagerness, to see who could
take home the largest bunch.

The further north a traveller went, the rarer did
primroses become, till in Northumberland, the most
northerly county of all, primroses used to be very
scarce indeed. Until, only a few years ago, a wonder-
ful thing happened. There were days and weeks and
Q 225

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

months of warm sunny weather all through the
spring and summer in^that* particular year. Old
people smiled and nodded to one another as they
said : ‘ None of us ever remembers a spring like this
before!^ ^

The tender leaves and buds and flower^undid
their wrappings in a hurry to be first to cat^h sight
of the sun, whose warm fingers had awakened them,
long before their usual time, from their winter sleep.
All over England the spring flowers hUd a splendid
time of it that year.

Even the few scattered primroses living in what
Southerners call ‘the cold grey North’ were obvi-
ously enjoying themselves. Their smooth, pale-yel-
low faces opened wider, and grew larger and more
golden, day by day: while new, soft, pointed buds
came poking up through their downy green blankets
in unexpected places. Moreover, the warm weather
lasted right through the summer. Not only did far
more primroses flower than usual, but also, after they
had faded, there was plenty of warmth to ripen the
precious seed packet that each one had carried at its
heart. No wonder the children clapped their hands,
that joyous spring, when their treasures were so plen-
tiful; but they feared that they would never have such
good luck again, even if they lived to be as old as the
old people who had ‘never seen such a spring before.

It was not until a year later that the delighted
children discovered that the long spell of sunshine
and the Enchanter Wind had worked %sting magic.
The ripened seed had been scattered far and wide.
The primroses had come to the North to stay; and
new Paradises were springing up everywhere.

226

SCATTERING THE SEED

Now this is a primrose parable of many things,
and worth remembering. * Among other things it
is an illustration of the change that was wrought all
over England by the preaching of George Fox.

Think once again of the long bleak years of his
youth, when he was struggling in a dark world into
which it seemed as if no ray of light could pierce ;
when he and everyone else seemed to be frozen up in
a wintry religion, without life or warmth. Then think
how at lengt4i he felt the sap rising in his own soul,
turning his whole being to the Light, as he found
‘there is one, ever , Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy
condition.’ This discovery taught him that in all
other men’s hearts too, if they only knew, there was
‘that of God.’ Henceforward, to proclaim that Light
to others and the seed within their own hearts that
responds to the beams of the Sun of Righteousness,
was the service to which George Fox devoted his
whole life. As his own being blossomed in the spirit-
ual sunshine of his great discovery, he was able to
persuade hundreds and thousands of other frozen
hearts yield themselves and turn to the Light, and
open and blossom also in that same sunshine. A
greater wonder followed. Those other lives, as they
yielded themselves, began to ripen too, in different
ways, but silently and surely, until they in their turn
were ready to scatter the new seed, or, in the language
of their day, to ‘Publish Truth’ up and down all over
the country, until the whole face of England was
changed. ^ ^

By the time of George Fox’s death, more than one
out of every hundred among all the people of Eng-
lan^i was a Friend. But the Friends never regarded

227

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

themselves as a Sect, although Sects were flourish-
ing at that time. In 1 640 it is said that twenty new
kinds of Sects blossomed out in the course of one
week. George Fox and his followers believed that the
discovery they had made was meant for everybody,
as much as sunshine is. Other people nicknamed
them ‘Quakers,’ but they always spoke of themselves
by names that the whole world was welcome to share:
‘Children of the Light,’ ‘Friends of the Truth,’ or
simply ‘Friends.’ There was nothing exclusive about
such names as these. There was no such thing as
membership in a society then or for more than fifty
years afterwards. Anyone who was convinced by
what he had heard, and lived in the spirit of what he
professed, became ‘Truth’s Friend’ in his turn.

Neither was there anything exclusive in George
Fox’s message. ‘Keep yourselves in an universal spirit’
was what he both preached and practised. It was in
‘an universal spirit ’that he and his followers scattered
all over the country. No wonder they earned the
name of ‘the Valiant Sixty,’ that little band of com-
rades who in 1654 started out from the Norfn Coun-
try on their mission of convincing all England of ‘the
Truth.’

They were nearly all young men, their leader Fox
himself still only thirty at this time. Francis Howgill
and John Camm were two of the very few elders in
the company. They usually travelled in couples, dear
friends naturally going together; for is not the best
work always done with the right compani^on ? George
Fox, who was leader, not by any outward signs of
authority out by fervour of inward power and zeal,
occasionally travelled alone. More often he took

_ f '

SCATTERING THE SEED

with him a comrade, such as Richard Farnsworth (of
whom we have heard at Pendle), or James Nayler, or
Leonard Fell, or many another, of whom there are
other stories yet to tell.

Never was George Fox nappier than *vhen he was
sowing the seed in a new place. All over England
there a 5 |e memories of him, even as far away as the
Land’s End.

When, in 1656, he reached the rocky peninsula
of granite at*the extreme south west of England, he
wrote in his journal: ‘At Land’s End we Lad a
precious meeting. Here was a fisherman, Nicholas
Jose, convinced, that became a faithful minister.
He spoke in meetings and declared truth to the
people, so that I told Friends he was “like Peter.”
I was glad the Lord raised up Ilis standard in those
dark parts of the nation, where since there is a fine
meeting of honest-hearted Friends, and a great
people the Lord will have in that country.’

Unluckily, some of the other Cornish fisherfolk
were not at all ‘like Peter.’ They were wreckers, and
used to entice ships on to the rocks by means of false
lights in order to enrich themselves wuth the spoils
washed up on their coasts. This is why George Fox
spoke of them as a ‘dark people,’ and was moved to
put forth a paper ‘warning them against such wicked
practices.’

There are memories of him also in the town which
was then called Smethwick, and is now called Fal-
mouth, as \¥eU as at grim old Pendennis Castle : one
of the twin castles that.had been built by King Henry
the Eighth to guard the mouth of Falmouth harbour.
Here George JFox was confined. From hence he was

229

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

carried to Launceston, where he lay for many weeks
in prison in the awful deA of Doomsdale, under con-
ditions so dreadful that it is impossible to describe
them here. When, at length, he was set at liberty he
found a refuge at the hospitable farmhouse of Tre-
gangeeves near St. Austell — the Swarthmoor of the
West of England — with its warm-hearted rfistress,
Loveday Hambley. At Exeter he stayed at an inn,
at the foot of the bridge, named ‘the Seven Stars.’ In
our own day some of his followers have fSund another
‘Inn of Shining Stars’ at Exeter also, when their turn
has come to b? lodged within the grim walls of the
Gaol for conscience sake.

Now let us borrow the Giant’s Seven-Leagued
boots, and fancy ourselves in the far N orth of England,
in 1657, just leaving Cumberland and crossing the
Scottish border. Again the same square-set figure in
the plain, soft, wide hat is riding ahead. But on this
journey George Fox has several others with him: one
is our old acquaintance, James Lancaster: Alexander
Parker is the name of another of his companions: the
third, Robert Widders, Fox himself described as ‘a
thundering man.’ With them rides a certain Colonel
W illiam Osborne, ‘one of the earliest Quaker preachers
north of the Tweed, who came into Cumberland at
this time on purpose to guide the party. ’ * Colonel
Osborne, who had been present with the other travel-
lers at a meeting atPardshawCrag shortly before, ‘said
that he never saw such a glorious meeting in his life.’

‘Fox says that as soon as his horse set foot across
the Border, the infinite sparks of life sparkled about

* W. C. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism.

230

SCATTERING THE SEED

him, and as he rode along he saw that the seed of
the seedsman Christ .was sown, but abundance of
clods of foul and filthy earth was above it/ *

A high-born Scottish lady, named Lady Margaret
Hamilton, was convinced cn this journey. Slfe after-
wards went in her turn to w^rn Oliver Cromwell of
the of the Lord that was coming upon him.
Various other distinguished people seem also to have
been convinced at this time. The names of Fox’snew
disciples sound unusually imposing: ‘Judge Swinton
of Swinton; Sir Gideon Scott of Highchester; Walter
Scott of Raeburn Sir Gideon’s brother ; Charles Or-
miston, merchant, Kelso; Anthony Haig of Bemer-
syde and William his brother’; but Quakerism never
took firm root in the Northern Kingdom, as it did
among the dalesmen and townsfolk farther South.

Fox journeyed on, right into the Highlands, but
he got no welcome there. ‘We went among the
clans,’ he says, ‘and they were devilish, and like to
have spoiled us and our horses, and run with pitch-
forks at us, but through the Lord’s power we escaped
them.’ ♦.At Perth, the Baptists were very bitter, and
persuaded the Governor to drive the party from
the town, whereupon ‘James Lancaster was moved
to sound and sing in the power of God, and I was
moved to sound the Day of the Lord, the glorious
everlasting Gospel; and all the streets were up and
filled with people: and the soldiers were so ashamed
that they cried, and said they had rather have gone
to Jamaica j" than to guard us so, and then they set

* W. C. Braithwaite, Beginnings oj Quakerism.
t Jamaica, with its ‘deadly climate, had lately been taken by
England from Spainj and was at this time proving the grave of
hu^reds of English soldiers.

2,1; I

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

US in a boat and set us over the water.’

At Leith many officers of the army and their wives
came to see Fox. Among these latter was a certain
Mrs. Billing, who lived alone, having quarrelled with
her husband. She brought a handful of coral orna-
ments with her, and threw them on the table ostent-
atiously, in order to see if Fox would preach a^sermon
against such gewgaws, since the Quakers were well
known to disapprove of jewellery and other vanities.

‘I took no notice of it,’ says Fox, ^but declared
Truth to her, and she was reached.’ What a picture
it makes ! The fine lady, with her chains and brooches
and rings of smooth, rose-coloured coral heaped up
on the table before her, her eyes cast down as she
pretended to let the pretty trifles slip idly through
her fingers, yet glancing up now and then, under her
eyelashes, to see if she had managed to attract the
great preacher’s attention; and Fox, noticing the
baubles well enough, but paying no attention to them.
Fixing his piercing eyes not on the coral but on its
owner, he spoke to Mrs. Billing with such power that
her whole life was changed. Once more Fox haVl found
‘that of God’ within this seemingly frivolous woman.

Before he left Scotland he had the happiness of
persuading Mrs. Billing to send for her husband, and
of helping to make up the quarrel between them.
They agreed eventually to live in unity together once
more as man and wife.

Fox journeyed on, in this way, year after year, al-
ways sowing the seed wherever he went;, and some-
times having the joy of seeing it spring up above the
clods and bring forth fruit an hundredfold. Even
duringthe long weary intervals of captivity this serv, ice
232

SCATTERING THE SEED

still continued. ‘Indeed, Fox and his fellow-sufferers
never looked upon pri'soii as an interruption in their
life service, but used the new surroundings in a fresh
cariipaign.'* Thus, the historian tells us: ‘'^hough
George Fox found good entertainment, yet he did
not settle there but kept in a continual motion,
going fipm one place to another, co beget souls unto
God/ t

The rest of the ‘Valiant Sixty, ^ meanwhile, were
likewise bus)^, going up and dovm the country, work-
ing in different places and with different methods, but
all intent on the ov.e enterprise of ‘Publishing Truth.’
‘And so when the churches were settled in the
North,’ says the Journal, ‘and the Lord had raised
up many and sent forth many into His Vineyard to
preach His everlasting Gospel, as Francis Howgill
and Edward Burrough to London, John Camm and
John Audland to Bristol through the countries, Rich-
ard Hubberthorne and George Whitehead towards
Norwich, and Thomas Holme unto Wales, that a
matter of sixty ministers did the Lord raise up and
send abroad out of the North Countries.’

There were far fewer big towns in England in those
days than there are now. Probably at least two-thirds
of the people lived in the country, and only the re-
maining third were townsfolk: nowadays the pro-
portions are more than reversed. There was then no
thickly populated ‘Black Country’; there were then
no humming mills in the woollen districts of York-
shire, no irop ^nd steel works soiling the pure rivers
of Tees and Wear and Tyne. Most of the chief towns

* Cameos from the’' Life of George Fox, by E. E. Taylor,
t jewel’s History of the Quakers,

233

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

and industries at that time were in the South.

‘ London had a popul^ition *of half a million. Bris-
tol, the principal seaport, had about thirty thousand;
Norwich, with a similar number of inhabitants, was still
the largest manufacturing city. The publishers of
Truth would now make these three places their chief
fields of service, showing something of the sa^e con-
centration of effort at strategic centres which marked
the extension of Christianity through the Roman
Empire, under the leadership of Paul.’^

A certain impetuous lad named James Parnell,
already a noted Minister though still in his teens, was
hard at work in the counties of East Anglia. In the
next story we shall hear how Howgill and Burrough
fared in their mission ‘to conquer London.^

Splendid tidings came from the two Johns, John
Audland and John Camm, of their progress in Bristol
and the West: ‘The mighty power of God is that way;
that is a precious city and a gallant people: their net
is like to break with fishes, they have caught so much
there and all the coast thereabout.’ The memory of
the enthusiasm of those early days lingered’ long in
the West, in the memory of those who had shared in
them. ‘ Ah! those great meetings in the Orchard at
Bristol I may not forget,’ wrote John Audland many
years later, ‘I would so gladly have spread my net
over all and have gathered all, that I forgot myself,
never considering the inability of my body, — but it’s
well, my reward is with me, and I am content to give
up and be with the Lord, for that ijny soul values
above all things.’

Women also were among the first Publishers of

* W. C. Braithwaite, Beginnings of (Quakerism, «-

234

SCATTERING THE SEED

Truth and helped to spread the message. Even be-
fore Burrough and Hbwgifl reached London, two
women had been there, gently scattering the new
seed. It is recorded that one of them, name^d Isa-
bella Buttery, ‘sometimes spoke a few words in this
small meeting.’

Two^^uakergirls from Kendal, Elizabeth Leavens
and ‘little Elizabeth Fletchei,’ were the first to preach
in Oxford, and a terr.'ble time they had of it. ‘Little
Elizabeth Flefcher’ was then only seventeen, ‘a mod-
est, grave, young woman.’ Jane Waugh, one of the
‘convinced’ servin- -maids at Cammsgill,was a friend
of hers; but Jane Waugh’s turn for suffering had not
yet come. She was still in the North when the two
Elizabeths reached Oxford. This is the account of
what befell them there: ‘The 20th day of the 4th
month [June] 1654 came to this city two maids, who
went through the streets and into the Colleges, steeple
and tower houses, preaching repen tance and declaring
the word of the Lord to the people. ... On the 25 th
day of the same month they were moved to go to
Martin’s Mass House {alias) Carefox, where one of
those maids, after the priest had done, spake some-
thing in answer to what the priest had before spoken
in exhortation to the people, and presently were by
two Justices sent to prison.’ The Mayor of Oxford
seems to have been pleased with the behaviour of the
two girls and caused them to be set at liberty again.
But the Vice-Chancellor and the Justices would not
agree to this, a^id ‘earnestly enquired from whence
they came, and their business to Oxford. They
answered, “they were commanded of the Lord to
come”; and itjaeing demanded “what to do,” they

235

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

answered, to ^‘declare against Sin and Ungodliness,
which they lived in.” A*nd at this answer the Vice-
Chancellor and the Justices ordered their punish-
ment, ^ to be whipped out of town, and demanding
of the Mayor to agree to the same, and for refusing,
Baid they would do it of themselves, and signing a
paper, the contents whereof was this : To barseverely
whipped, and sent out of Town as Vagrants. And
forthwith, because of the tumult, they were put into
the Cage, a place common for the woVst of people ;
and accordingly the next morning, they were whipped,
and sent away, and on the backside of the City, meet-
ing some scholars, they were moved to speak to them,
who fell on them very violently, and drew them into
John's College, where they tied them back to back
and pumped water on them, until they were almost
stifled ; and they being met at another time as they
passed through a Graveyard, where a corpse was to
be buried, Elizabeth Holme spake something to the
Priest and people, and one Ann Andrews thrust her
over a grave stone, which hurt she felt near to her
dying day.'

Two other women, Elizabeth Williams and a cer-
tain Mary Fisher (who was hereafter to go on a Mis-
sion to no less a person than the Grand Turk), were
also cruelly flogged at Cambridge for daring to ‘pub-
lish Truth' there. ‘The Mayor. . . issued his warrant to
the Constable to whip them at the Market Cross till
the blood ran down their bodies; and ordered three
of his sergeants to see that sentence, ec^ufilly cruel and
lawless, severely executed. The poor women kneel-
ing down, in Christian meekness besought the Lord
to forgive him, for that he knew not ^hat he did: so
236

SCATTERING THE SEED

they were led to the Market Cross, calling upon God
to strengthen their Faith. ’ The Executioner com-
manded them to put off their clothes, which they re-
fused. Then he stripped them naked to the waist, put
their arms into the whippir g-post, and executed the
Mayor's warrant far more cm Jlythan is usually done
to the Voorst of malefactors, so that their flesh was
miserably cut and torn. The constr.ncy and patience
which they expressed under this barbarous usage was
astonishing t© the beholders, for they endured the
cruel torture without the least change of countenance
or appearance of uneasiness, and in the midst of their
punishment sang and rejoiced, saying, “The Lord be
blessed, the Lord be praised, who hath thus honoured
us and strengthened us to suffer for his Name’s
sake.” ... As they were led back into the town they
exhorted the people to fear God, not man, telling
them “this was but the beginning of the sufferings
of the people of God.” ’ *

These two women were the first Friends to be
publicly whipped in England. But their prophecy
that ‘thfs was but the beginning’ was only too liter-
ally fulfilled.

Not only had bodily sufferings to be undergone
by these brave ‘First Publishers.’ Malicious reports
were also spread against them, which must have been
almost harder to bear.

William Prynne,thesameWilliamPrynnewhohad

had his own ears cropped in earlier days by order of the
Star Chambpr,^but who had not, apparently, learned
charity to others through his own sufferings, pub-
lished a pamphlet that was spread abroad through-
* Besse, Sufferings of the Quakers,

• 2.^7

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

out England. It was called ‘The Quakers unmasked,
and clearly detected to be but the Spawn of Romish
Frogs, Jesuits and Franciscan Friars, sent from Rome
to seduce the intoxicated giddy -headed English
Nation.^ George Fox called the pamphlet in which
he answered this charge by an almost equally un-
charitable title: ‘The Unmasking and Discovery of
Antichrist, with all the false Prophets, by the true
Light which comes* from Christ Jesus/

The seventeenth century has truly been called
‘a very ill-mannered century/ Certainly these were
not pretty names for pamphlets that were so widely
read that, to quote the graphic expression of an
earlier writer, ‘they walked up and down England
at deer rates. ^

Yet, still, in spite of bodily ill-usage and imprison-
ment, through good report and through evil report,
through fair weather and foul, the work of scattering
the seed continued steadily, day after day, month
after month, year after year. The messengers went
on, undaunted; the Message spread and took root
throughout the land; the trials of the work were
swallowed up in the triumphant joy of service and
of ‘Publishing Truth/

XVI. WRESTLING
FOR GOD

^Beinghuta hoy ^Edward Burroiigh
had the. spirit of a man. Reviling^
slandering buj^etting and caning
were oft his lot. Nothing could make
this hero shrink ,^ — sew el.

^Nis natural disposition was bold
and manly .^what he took in hand he
did with his might; loving., courte^
ouSj merciful a nd easy to be entrea ted; ^
he delighted in conference and read-
ing of the holy scriptures I — ^ Piety
Promoted?

^Dear Brother, mind the Lord and
stand in His will and counsel.
And dwell in the pure measure
of God in thee, and there thou wilt
see the Lord God present with thee.
For the bringing forth many out of
prison art thou there set; behold the
word of the Lord cannot be hound.
The Lord God of Power give thee
itnsdom, courage, manhood, and bold-
ness, to thresh down all deceit. Dear
Heart, be valiant, and mind thepure
Spirit of God in thee, to guide thee ^
up into God, to thunder down all
deceit within and without. So fare-
well, and God Almighty keep you.
— GEORGE FOX, tc a friend in the
ministry,

^So, all dear and tender hearts,
abide in the counsel of God, and
let not the world ove^xome your
minds but wait for a daily victory
ever it I — e. bur rough, ■ •

^Give me the strength to surren-
der my strength to Thee in Love,*

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

XVI. WRESTLING
FOR GOD ■

* jk BRISK young man with a ready tongue' was
the verdict passed upon Edward Burrough,
the hero of this scory, by a certain Mr.
Thomsj^ Ellwood when he met him first in the year
1659.

Ellwood himself, who thus described his new ac-
quaintance, was a young man too at that time, of good
education and scholarly tastes. He became later the
friend of a certain Mr. John Milton, who thought
sufficiently w^ell of his judgment to allow him to read
his poetry before it was published, and to ask him
what he thought of it; even, occasionally, to act
upon his suggestions. Ellwood, therefore, was clearly
the possessor of a sober judgment, and not a likely
person to be carried away by the glib words of a wander-
ing preacher. Yet that ‘brisk young man,’ Edward
Burrough, did not only ‘reach him ’with his ‘ready
tongue,’ he also completely ‘convinced’ him, and al-
tered hfs whole life : Ellwood returned to his family
ready to suffer hardship if need be on behalf of his
newly-found faith.

Ellwood’s own adventures, however, do not con-
cern us here, but those of the young man who con-
vinced him.

Edward Burrough was one of the best loved and
most valiant of all those ‘Valiant Sixty ’ministers who
went forth throughout the length and breadth of Eng-
land, in 1654, on their new, wonderful enterprise of
‘Publishing Truth.’^ If Edward Burrough was still
‘yopng and brislc’ when Ellwood first came across
R 241

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

him, he must have been yet younger and brisker on
that summer^s day, five 3^ars earlier, when he left his
home in Westmorland in order to ‘conquer London/
This was an ambitious undertaking truly for any man,
howevW brisk and ready of tongue.

It is true that the London of those long-ago days

of the Commonwealth, before the Great Fire, was a

(

much more compact city than the gigantic, overgrown
London of to-day. ‘ Instead of ‘sprawling over five
or six counties,’ ^ and containing six orfseven million
inhabitants, London was then a comparatively small
place, its population, though rapidly increasing, did
not yet number one million.

‘An old map of the year i6io shows us that
London and Westminster were then two neighbour-
ing cities surrounded by meadows. “Totten Court”
was an outlying country village. Oxford Street is
marked on this map as “The way to Uxbridge,” and
runs between meadows and pastures. The Tower,

Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Church,

and some other landmarks are indeed there, but it is
curious to read the accounts given by th6 chron-
icles of the day of its narrow and dirty streets, in which
carts and coaches jostled one another, and foot pass-
engers found it difficult to get along at all. . . . When
the Kingwentto Parliament, faggots were thrown into
the ruts in the streets through which he passed, to
make it easier for his state coach to drive over the
uneven roads ! ’ *

Nevertheless this gay little countrified town of
timbered houses, surrounded by meadows and or-
chards, and overlooked by the green heights of ‘Ham-

* S^ofy of Quakerism, E. B. Emmott.

242

WRESTLING FOR GOD

sted’ and Primrose Hill, was then as now the Capital
City of England. And England under Oliver Crom-
well was one of the most powerful of the States of
Europe. ^

Therefore if a young man barely out of his teens
were tc succeed in ‘conquering London,’ and bend-
ing it toiiis will, he would certainly need all his brisk-
ness and readiness of tongue.

Edward Burrough probably entered London
alone and on foot, after a jorrney extending over
several weeks. He had left his native Westnunland
in company with good John Camm, the ‘statesman’
farmer of Cammsgill. The first stages of i heir journey
were made on horseback. Many a quiet talk the two
men must have had together as they rode through
the green lanes of England, — that long-ago England
of the Commonwealth, its clear skies unstained by
any tall chimneys or factory smoke. There were but
iiew hedgerows then, ‘a single hedge is a marked feat-
ure in the contemporary maps.’'^ The cornfields
stretche^ away in a broad, unbroken expanse as they
do to-day on the Continent of Europe and in the
lands of the New World.

As they rode, Camm would tell Burrough, doubt-
less, of his first sight of George Fox, preaching in Sed-
bergh Churchyard, under the ancient yew-tree op-
posite the market cross, on that never-to-be-forgotten
day of the Whitsuntide Fair. The story of the ‘Won-
derful Fortnight’ would be sure to follow; of the
‘ Mighty Meoting ’ on the Fell outside Firbank Chapel;
of the gathering of the Seekers at Preston Patrick ;
and of yet another jo pen-air meeting, when hundreds

* Englandminder the Stuarts^ G. M. Trevelyan.

243

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

of people assembled one memorable First Day near
his own hillside farm at Cammsgill.

Then it would be the younger man’s turn to tell
his ta\e.

‘He was born in the barony of Kendal ... of
parents who for their honest and virtuous life were
in good repute; he was well educated, and trained

up in such learning as that country did afford By

his parents he was trained up in the episcopal wor-
ship,’’*^ but for a long time, he says that the only
religion that he practised was ‘going to church one
day in seven to hear a man preach, to read, and sing,
and rabble over a prayer.’ (It is easy to smile at the
old-fashioned word; but let us try to remember it
when we ourselves are tempted to get up too late in
the morning and ‘rabble over’ our own prayers.)

Gradually the unseen world grew more real. A
beautiful and comforting message was given to him
in his heart, ‘Whom God once loves, he loves for
ever.’ Now he grew weary of hearing any of the
priests, for he saw they did not possess wjiat they
spoke of to others, and sometimes he began to ques-
tion his own experiences.

Nevertheless he felt it a grievous trial to give up
all his prospects of earthly advancement and become
a Quaker. Yet from the day he listened to George
Fox preaching at Underbarrow there was no other
course open to him; though his own parents were much
incensed with him for daring to join this despised
people. They even refused to acknowledge him any
longer as a member of their family. Being rejected
as a son, therefore, he begged to .be allowed to stay
* Sewel's History of the Quakers,

244

WRESTLING FOR GOD

on in his home and work as a servant, bat this, too,
was refused. Thus being, a^he says, ‘separated from
all the glory of the world, and from all his acquaint-
ance and kindred, ’he betook himself to the company
of ‘a poor, despised people called Qual^.ers.’ ^

It must have been a coLifort to him, after being
cast off by his own family, to find himself adopted
by a stilf larger family of friends, rnd to become one
of the ‘Valiant Sixty ’entrusted w^th the great advent-
ure of Publishing Truth.

Riding along with good John C!amm, wi’^b talk
to beguile the /^ay, was pleasant travelling; but
this happy companionship was not to last very long.
For as they journeyed and came near the ‘ Middle
Kingdom,’ or Midlands, they fell in with another of
‘Truth’s Publishers.’

This was none other than their Westmorland
neighbour, John Audland, ‘the ruddy-faced linen-
draper of Crosslands,’ John Camm’s own especial
comrade and pair among the ‘Sixty.’

It may have been a prearranged plan that they
should ftieet heie; anyway Camm turned aside with
Audland and went on with him to Bristol, where he
had already begun to scatter the seed in the west of
England, while Edward Burrough pursued his jour-
ney in solitude towards London.* But his days of
loneliness were not to last for long. Either just be-
fore or just after his arrival in the great city, two other

* I have followed Thomas Camm’s account of his father’s jour-
ney with Edward Burrough, and of their meeting with John Aud-
land in the Mifllaftds, as given in his book, The Memory of the
Righteous Revived. W. C. Braithwaite, however, in his Begin-
nings of Quakerism.^ thinks it more probable that Francis Howgill
was E, Burrough’s companion from the North, and that tJie two
friends reached London together.

24S

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Publishers also reached the metropolis, one of whoto,
Francis Howgill, was to^e his own especial comrade
and pair in the task of ‘conquering London.* This
was that same Francis Howgill, a considerably older
man fnan Burrough, and formerly a leader among
the Seekers, who had been preaching that memorable
day at Firbank when he thought George Fox looked
into the Chapel and was so much struck that ‘ you
could have killed him with a crab-apple.* Now that
they had come together, however, k would have
taken more than many crab-apples to deter him
and Burrough from their Mission. Together the
two friends laid their plans for the capture of London,
and together they proceeded to carry them out. The
success they met with was astonishing. ‘By the arm
of the Lord,* writes Howgill, ‘all falls before us, ac-
cording to the word of the Lord before I came to this
City, that all should be as a plain.*

Amidst their engrossing labours in the capital
the two London ‘Publishers* did not forget to send
news of their work to Friends in the North. Many
letters written at this time remain. Those to Margaret
Fell, especially, give a vivid picture of their progress.
These letters are signed sometimes by Howgill, some-
times by Burrough, sometimes by both together. But,
whatever the signature, the pronouns* I * and ‘we’ are
used indiscriminately, as if to show that the writers
were not only united in the service of Truth but were
also one in heart.

‘We two,* they say in one letter, ‘are constrained
to stay in this city; but we are not alone, for the pow-
er of our Father is with us, and it is daily made mani-
fest through weakness, even to the stopping of the
246

WRESTLING FOR GOD

itiouths of lions and lo the confounding of the ser-
pent’s wisdom ; eternal prafises to Him for evermore.
In this city, iniquity is grown to the height. We have
three meetings or more every week, very large, more
than any place will conti in, and which we c&n con-
veniently meet in. Many ef all sorts come to us and
many of all sorts are convinced, yea, hundreds do
believe. . . . '

Again: ‘We get Friends tdgether on the First
Days to meet? together out of the rude multitude; and
we two go to the great meeting place which we have,
which will hold a thousand people, which is always
nearly filled, there to thresh among the world; and
we stay till twelve or one o^clock and then pass away,
the one to the one place and the other to another
place where Friends arc met in private; and stay till
four or five o’clock.’

Only a month later yet another ‘great place’ had
to be taken for a ‘threshing-floor,’ or hall where
public meetings could be held. To these meetings
anyone might come and listen to the preachers’
message, which ‘threshed them like grain, and sifted
the wheat from the “ light chaffy minds ” among
the hearers.’

How ‘chaffy’ and frivolous this gay world of Lon-
don appeared to these first Publishers, consumed
with the burning eagerness of their mission, the fol-
lowing description shows. It occurs in a letter from
George Fox himself when he, too, came to the met-
ropolis, a ^w, months later.

‘What a world this is,’ he writes . . . ‘altogether
carried with fooleries and vanities both men and
women . . . putting on gold, gay apparel, plaiting the

247

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

hair, men and women they are powdering it, making
their backs as if they were bags of meal, and they
look so strange that they cannot look at one another.
Pride hath puffed up every one, they are out of the fear
of God)^ men and women, young and old, one puffs
up another, they are not in the fashion of the world
else, they are not in esteem else, they shall^not be
respected else, if they have not gold and silver upon
their backs, or his hair be not powdered. If he have
a company of ribbons hung about his waist, red or
white, or black or yellow, and about his knees, and gets
a Company in his hat, and powders his hair, then he
is a brave man, then he is accepted, then he is no
Quaker. . . , Likewise the women having their gold,
their spots on their faces, noses, cheeks, foreheads,
having their rings on their fingers, wearing gold, hav-
ing their cuffs doubled under and about like abutcher
with white sleeves ’(how pretty they must have been!),
‘having their ribbons tiedabout their hands, and three
or four gold laces about their clothes, “ this is no
Quaker,” say they. . . . Now are not all these that have
got these ribbons hung about their arms, backs| Waists,
knees, hats, hands, like unto fiddlers’ boys, and shew
that you are gotten into the basest contemptible life
as be in the fashion of the fiddlers’ boys and stage-
players, and quite out of the paths and steeps of solid

men And further to get a pair of breeches like a

coat and hang them about with points up almost to
the middle, and a pair of double cuffs upon his hands,
and a feather in his cap, and to say, “I^erp’s a gentle-
man, bow before him, put off your hats, bow, get a
company of fiddlers, a set of music and women to
dance, this is a brave fellow, up in the chamber with-
248

WRESTLING FOR GOD

out and up in the chamber within,” are these your
fine Christians? “Yea,” sa*y they. “Yea but,” say
the serious people, “ they are not of Christ’s life.”
And to see such a company as are in the fashions of
the world . . . get a couple of bowls in their h^nds or
tables [dice] or shovel-boaru, or a horse with a Com-
pany of ribbons on his head as he hath on his own,
and a ring in his ear; and so go to horse-racing to
spoil the creature. Oh these are gentlemen, these are
bred up gentlemen ! these are brave fellows and they
must have their recreation, and pleasures are ’awful.
These are bad C ristians and shew that they are glut-
toned with the creature and then the flesh rejoiceth!’

No wonder that Edward Burrough wrote to Mar-
garet Fell that * in this city iniquity is grown to the
height,’ and again, in a later Hter: ‘There are hun-
dreds convinced, but not many great or noble do
receive our testimony ... we are much refreshed,
we receive letters from all quarters, the work goes on
fast everywhere. . . Richard Hubberthorne is yet in
prison and James Parnell at Cambridge. . . . Our
dear brethren John Audland and John Camm we
hear from, and we write to one another twice in the
week. They are near us, they are precious and the
work of the Lord is great in Bristol.’

Margaret Fell writes back in answer, like a true
mother in Israel, ‘You are all dear unto me, and all
are present with me, and are all met together in my
heart.’

And no>y, paving heard what the ‘ Valiant Sixty’
thought of London, what did London think of the
‘Valiant Sixty’? ‘Many years later a certain William
Spiury wrote of these early days: ‘I being in London

249

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

at the time of the first Publication of Truth, there was
* a report spread in the City that there was a sort of
people come there that went by the name of plain
North Country plow men, who did differ in judgment
to allo\her people in that City, who I was very desirous
to see and converse with. And upon strict enquiry I
was informed that they did meet at one Widow Mat-
thews in White Cross Street, in her garden, where I
repaired, where was our dear friends Edward Bur-
rough and Francis Howgill, who declared the Lord’s
everlasting Truth in the demonstration of the Spirit
of Life, where myself and many more were convinced
A little time after there was a silent meeting appointed
and kept at Sarah Sawyer’s in Rainbow Alley.’

Veryrural and unlike London these places sound:
but meetings were not only held in secluded spots,
such as the garden in White Cross Street, and the
house in Rainbow Alley, they were also held in the
tumultuous centres of Vanity Fair.

‘ Edward Burrough,’ says Sewel the historian,
‘though he was a very young man when he first came
forth, yet grew in wisdom and valour so that hfe feared
not the face of man.’ ‘At London there is a custom
in summer time, when the evening approaches and
tradesmen leave off working, that many lusty fellows
meet in the fields, to try their skill and strength at
wrestling, where generally a multitude of people stand
gazing in a round. Now it so fell out, that Edward
Burrough passed by the place where they were wrest-
ling, and standing still among thespecjatprs, saw how
a strong and dexterous fellow had already thrown
three others, and was now waiting for a fourth cham
pion, if any durst venture to enter the lists. At lepgth
250

WRESTLING FOR GOD

none being bold enough to tiy, E. Burrough stepped
into the ring (conimonly*made up of all sorts of
people), and having looked upon the wrestler with a
serious countenance, the man was not a little sur-
prised, instead of an airy antagonist, to m#et with
a grave and awful young rran; and all stood amazed
at this sight, eagerly expecting what would be the
issue of this combat. But it was quite another fight
Edward Burrough aimed at • For having already
fought agair^t spiritual wickedness, that had once
prevailed in him and having overcome it in meas-
ure, by the gra ^e of G">d, he now endeavoured also
to fight against it in others, and to turn them from
the evil of their ways. With this intention he began
very seriously to speak to the standers by, and that
with such a heart-piercing power, that he was heard
by this mixed multitude with no less attention than
admiration ; for his speech tended to turn them from
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God.

‘Thus he preached zealously; and though many
might look upon this as a novelty, yet it was of such
effect ^at many were convinced of the truth. . . . And
indeed he was one of those valiants, whose bow never
turned back . . . nay he was such an excellent instru-
ment in the hand of God that even some mighty and
eminent men were touched to the heart by the power
of the word of life which he preached \ . ‘using few
words but preaching after a new fashion so that he was
called a “son of thunder and also of consolation.

‘Now I come also to the glorious exit of E. Bur-
rough, that v*aliant hero. For several years he had
been very much ( in London, and had there preached
the gospel with piercing and powerful declarations.

251

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

And that city was SO near to him, that oftentimes, when
ipersecution grew hot, he said to Francis Howgill, his
bosom friend, *‘I can go freely to the city of London,
and lay down my life for a testimony of that truth,
which ^ have declared through the power and spirit
of God.” Being in this year [1662] at Bristol, and
thereabouts, and moved to return to London, he said
to many of his friends, when he took leave 6 { them,
that he did not know he should see their faces any
more ; and therefore he exhorted them tp faithfulness
and steadfastness, in that wherein they had found rest
for their souls. And to some he said, “ I am now going
up to the city of London again, to lay down my life for
the gospel, and suffer among friends in that place.”’

Thus it befell that Edward Burrough was called
to a more deadly wrestling match than any in the
pleasant London fields. He was thrown into prison,
and there he had to face a mortal foe in the gaol-
fever that was then raging in that noisome den.
This was to wrestle in grim earnest, with Death him-
self for an adversary; and in this wrestling match
Death was the conqueror. *

Charles the Second was now on the throne. He
knew and respected Edward Burrough, and did his
best to rescue him. Knowing the pestilential and
overcrowded state of New^gate at that time, the
Merry Monarch, to his lasting credit, sent a royal
warrant for the release of Edward Burrough and some
of the other prisoners, when he heard of the danger
they were in from the foul state of the prison. But
this order a certain cruel and persecuting Alderman,
named Richard Brown, and some magistrates of the

• Sewel’s History of the Quakers,

2$2

WRESTLING FOR GOD

City of London contrived to thwart. The prisoners
remained in the gaol. Edward Burrough caught the
fever, and grew rapidly worse. On his death-bed he
said, * Lord, forgive Richard Browm, who imprisoned
me, if he may be forgiven.' Later on he said,' I have
served my God in my generation, and that Spirit,
which Ijjis lived and ruled in me shall yet break forth
in thousands.’ ‘The morning before he departed his
life ... he said, ‘-Now my souf and spirit is centred
into its own being with God; and this form of person
must return from whence it was taken. . . .’” A
few moments L ler, in crowded Newgate, he peace-
fully fell asleep. ‘This was the exit of E. Burrough,
who in his flourishing youth, about the age of eight
and twenty, in an unmarried state, changed this
mortal life for an incorruptible, and whose youthful
summer flower was cut down in the winter season,
after he had very zealously preached the gospel
about ten years.’

Francis Howgill, now left desolate and alone,
poured forth a touching lament for his vanished
‘yoke-?ellow.’

‘It was my lot,’ he writes, ‘to be his companion
and fellow-labourer in the work of the gospel where-
unto we were called, for many years together. And
oh ! when I consider, my heart is broken ; how sweetly
we walked together for many months and years in
which we had perfect knowledge of one another’s
hearts and perfect unity of spirit. Not so much as
one cross ivord or one hard thought of discontent
ever rose (I believe) in either of our hearts for ten
years together.’

*. Sewel's History of the Quakers,

*53

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

George Fox, no mean fighter himself, adds this
comment: ‘Edward Burrough never turned his back
on the Truth, nor his back from anyout of the Truth.
A valiant warrior, more than a conqueror, who hath
got the crown through death and sufferings ; who is
dead, but yet liveth amongst us, and amongst us is
alive.’

u

But it is from Francis Howgill, who knewhim best
and loved him most of all, that we learn the inmost
secret of the life of this mighty wrestler, when he
says :

‘his very strength was bended after cod.’

XVII. LITTLE JAMES
AND HIS JOURNEYS

Oy haw beautiful is the spring in a
barren fields where barrenness and
deadness fly away. As the spring
comes oUy the winter casts her coat
and the summer is nigh, O, ivait
to see and read these things within.
You that have been as barren and
dead and dry without sap; unto you
the Sun of Righteousness is risen
with healing in his wings and be-^
gins to shine in your coasts. ... ( 9 ,
mind the secret sprigs and te7ider
plants. Now you are called to dress
the garden. Let not the weeds and
wild plants remain. Peevishness
is a weed; anger is a weed; self-
love and self-will are weeds; pride
is a wild plant; covetousness is a
wild plant; lightness and vanity
are wild plants^ and lust is the root
of all. And these things have had
a room in your gardens^ and have
been tall and strong; and truths
innocence^ and equity have been left
out^ and could not be founds until
the Sun of Righteousness arose and
searched out that which was lost,
ThereforCy stand not idle^ but come
into the vineyard and work. Your
work shall be to watch and keep out
the fowls y unclean beasts, wild bears
a7id subtle foxes. And he that is the
Husbandman will pluckup the wild
plants and weeds, and makedefeyice
about the vines. He will tell you
what to do. He who is Father of
the vineyard will be nigh you. And
what is not clear to you, wait for
the fulfilling . — james parnell,
(Epistle to Friends from prisofi.)

XVII. LITTLE JAMES
AND HIS JOURNEYS

B e willing that Self shall suffer for the 'J'ruth,
ana not the Truth for Seif.’

JAMES PARNELL.

Tramping! Tramping! Tramping! An endless
journey along ♦he white, dusty highroad it seemed to
little James. Indeed the one hundred and fifty miles
that separate Re. ord in Nottinghamshire from Car-
lisle in far-off Cumberland v-^ould have been a long
distance even for a full-grown man to travel on foot
in those far-off, railroad-less days of 1652. Whereas
little James, who had undertaken this journey right
across England, was but a boy of sixteen, delicate and
small for his age.

‘ Ye will never get there, James,’ the neighbours
cried when he unfolded his plans. ‘To go afoot to
Carlisle! Did any one ever hear the like? It would
be a wilif-goose cnase, even if a man hoped to come
to speak with a King in his palace at the end of it ;
but for thee to go such a journey in order to speak but
for a few moments with a man thou dost not know,
and in prison, it is nothing but a daft notion! Whai
ails thee, boy?’

The only answer James gave was to knit his
brows more firmly together, and to mutter resolutely
to himself, a^ hp gathered his few belongings into a
bundle, ‘ I must and I will see George Fox I ’
George Fox! The secret was out. That was the
explajnation of this fantastic journey. George Fox,
s 257

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

after gathering a ‘ great people ’ up in the North,
was now himself kept a close prisoner in Carlisle
Gaol; yet he was the magnet attracting this lad,
frail of body but determined of will, to travel right
across England for the hope of speaking with him
in his prison cell.

Let us look back a little and see how this befell.

In the stately old church of Saint Swithin at East
Retford a record shows that ‘James, son of Thomas
Parnell and Sarah his wife, was baptized there on the
sixth day of September 1636.’ James’ parents were
pious church people. It must have been a proud and
thankful day for them when they took their baby son
to be christened in the beautiful old font in that
church, where their elder daughter, Sarah, had re-
ceived her name a few years before. On the font
may still be seen the figure of Saint Swithin himself,
the patron Saint of the church. This gentle saint,
whose dying wish had been that he might be buried
in no stately building of stone but ‘ where his grave
might be trod by human feet and watered with the
raindrops of heaven,’ was the guardian the parents
chose for their little lad. All through his short life
the boy seems to have shared this love of Nature
and of the open air.

James’ parents were well-to-do people, and wisely
determined to give their only son a good education.
They sent him, therefore, as soon as he was old enough,
to the Retford Grammar School, to be ‘trained up in
the Schools of Literature.’ James tells us that he was
‘ as wild as others during the time he was at school,
and that he was perfect in sin and iniquity as any in
258

JAMES & HIS JOURNEYS

the town where ne lived, yea and exceeded many in
the wickedness of his life,’\intil something or other
happened to sober the wild bey. He does not say
what it was. Perhaps it may have been the news that
reached Retford during his school days, that tide King
of England had been executed at Whitehall, one cold
January morning. Or it may have been something
quite different. Anyhovv, before he left school, he
was already anxious and tioublefti about his soul.

Schocl d^ys finished, he sought for help in his
difficulties from ‘ priests and professors.’ B*it, like
George Fox, a "cw years earlier, James Parnell got
small help fiom them. Some of the priests told him
that he was deluded. Others whose words sounded
better, did not practise what they preached. He says,
they ‘ preached down with their tongues what they
upheld in their lives.’ Therefore he decided, out of
his scanty experience, that they all were ‘hollow Pro-
fessors,’ and could be of no use to him. A very hasty
judgment ! But little James was tremendously sure of
himself at this time, quite certain that he knew more
than m8st of thti people he met, feeling entirely able
to set his neighbours to rights, and yet with a real
wish to learn, if only he could find a true teacher.

He says, ‘ I was the first in all that town of Ret-
ford which the Lord was pleased to make known His
power in, and turn my heart towards Him and truly
to seek Him, so that I became a wonder to the world
and an astonishment to the heathen round about.’

He adds that, at this time or a little later, even

• •

‘his own relations became his enemies.’ This is not
surprising. A yOung man of fifteen who described
his i^eighbours and friends as ‘the heathen round

259

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

about ^ must have been a distinctly trying companion
to the aforesaid * heatheh.’

Possibly there was more than one sigh of relief
heaved in East Retford when the first of little Jameses
journey s began. It was to be only a short one, to ‘a
people with whom I found union a few miles out of
the town where I lived. 'Fhe Lord was a-gathering
them out of the dark world to sit down together and
to wait upon His n^ime.’

These people were either a little gro^ip of Friends
already gathered at Balby, or they may have been
‘Seekers ’meeting together here in Nottinghamshire,
as they did in the North, at Sedbergh and Preston
Patrick and many another place, ‘ not celebrating
Baptism or the Holy Communion,’ but ‘ waiting to-
gether in silence to be instruments in the hand of the
Lord.’ Truly helpful ‘instruments’ they proved to little
James, for they sent him straight on to Nottingham,
where a company of ‘Children of Light’ was already
gathered, to worship God. ‘ Children of Light ’ is
the first, and the most beautiful, name given to the
Society of Friends in England. *

When these Nottingham Friends saw the vehe-
ment, impulsive boy, his thin frame trembling, his
eyes glowing, as he poured forth his difficulties, natur-
ally their thoughts went back to the other lad who
had also passed through severe soul struggles in this
same neighbourhood, some ten or twelve years earlier.

They all said to him, one after the other, ‘ James
Parnell, thou must see George Fox.’^,

‘George Fox!’ cried little James eagerly, ‘I have
never even heard his name. ‘ Who is he ? Where
is he ? I will go and find him this very momeiit, if
'>60

JAMES Gf HIS JOURNEYS

he can help me.’ ^

At these words, all the Nottingham Friends shook
their heads very solemnly and sadly and said, ‘That
is impossible, James, for our Friend languisheth in
Carlisle Gaol. But we can tell thee of him/

Then one after another they recounted the well-
known story of George Fox’s boyhood, of bis diffi-
culties, of his seeking, of his finaing, and lastly of his
preaching, when the Power cf God shone through
him as he s]^oke, and melted men’s hearts till they
became as wax.

James, driri.ang in every word, exclaimed breath-
lessly as soon as the story was finished., ‘That is the
man for me, 1 will set out for Carlisle this very minute
to find him!’

Of course all the Friends were aghast at the effect
of their words. They declared that he really couldn’t
and really shouldn’t, that it was out of the question,
and that he must do nothing of the kind I They did
their very best to stop him. But little James (who, as
we know, was rot in the habit of paying over-much at-
tention to other people’s opinions at any time) treated
all these remonstrances as if they had been thistle-
down. He swung his small bundle at the end of a
short stick over his shoulder, tightened his belt, tore
himself from their restraining hands, andexclaiming,
‘P’arewell, Friends, I go to find George Fox,’ ofi'he set
on the long, long journey to Carlisle.

His spirit was aflame with desire to meet his un-
known friejid. The miles seemed few and short
that separated him from his goal. But doubtless
some of the women among the ‘Children of Light’
wii:ied their e;jes as they watched the fiery little figure

261

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

disappear along the dust^road, and said, ‘Truly that
lad hath a valiant heart! ’

Thus, in a burning fury of desire, the journey
began. After many weary days of travel the flame
still burned unquenchably, although the boy’s figure
looked yet leaner and more under-sized than when
he left his home.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, on and ever on, till at last
the long-desired day came, when, over the crest of a
low hill, he made out for the first tinfe the distant
spire and towers of the fair Border city. The river
Eden in the meadows below lay gleaming in the sun-
shine like a silver bow.

Threadbare and very dusty were his clothes, his
feet swollen and sore, but his chin was pressed well
forward, and the light in his eyes was that of a con-
queror, when at last, tramp, tramp, tramp, his tired
feet came pattering up the stones of the steep old
bridge that spans the Eden and leads to Carlisle T own.

‘Which is the prison?^ James asked himself, as
his eyes scanned a bewildering maze of towers and
roofs. The tall leaden spire of the Cathedral was un-
mistakable, ‘no prisoners there.’ Next he made out
the big square fortress of sandstone, red as Red
William the Norman who built it long ago, on its
central mound frowning over the town.

His unknown friend might very possibly be with-
in those walls. James quickened his tired steps at
the thought, and then stopped short, for the gates of
the bridge were shut. Droves of shee^ and oxen on
their way to market filled the entry, and all foot pass-
engers must wait. James threw himself down, full
length, on one of the broad stone parapets of* the

JAMES & HIS JOURNEYS

bridge to rest his tired limbs until the way should be
dear again. Two men wer^ seated in a stone recess
below him, also waiting to pass. At first James
noticed only the dress they wore; their tall hats
and sombre clothes marked them out as Baptists;
the younger man a deacon probably, and the elder a
pastor.

Presently James began to listen to their convers-
ation. .

‘It is well he is safe in the Castle,’ said the young
er man, ‘most pernicious Quaker doctrine did he
deliver that Sabbath day in answer to our questions
in the Abbey.’

‘Pernicious Quaker doctrine! ’ James pricked up
his ears at the words. He settled himself comfortably
to listen, without any scruples, seeing that the speak-
ers were in a public place, and besides, the entrance
to the bridge was by this time so packed with people
that he could hardly have moved off the parapet had
he wished.

The older man shook his head. ‘ I thought I had
hewed^him in pieces before the Lord,’ he said in a
low voice, ‘for no sooner was he silent than I asked
him if he knew what he spake, and what it was should
be damned at the last day. Whereat he did but fix
his eyes upon me and said that “it was that which
spoke in me which should be damned.” Even as he
Spoke my old notions of religion glittered and fell off
me, for I knew that through him whom I despised as
a wandering Quaker I was listening to the Voice of
God. He T^ent on to upbraid me as a flashy notion-
ist and yet, eveq so, I was constrained to listen to him
in silence.’

263

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

The pastors voice had sunk very low: Janies
could hardly catch the kst words.

'Aye, no wonder/ rejoined theyounger man, ‘with
those eyes he seemeth to pierce the fleshly veil and
to reacj the secrets of a man's inmost heart. I, too,
experienced this, the following market day, he being
then come to the inarketcross“a-publishingof truth”
as he and hisfollowerstermit, in their quakin(5 jargon.
The magistrates, godly men, had sent the sergeants
commanding them to stop his mouth. Moreover,
they had sent their wives as well, and even the ser-
geants were less bitter against him than the women.
For they declared that if the Quaker dared to defile
the noble market cross of Carlisle city by preaching
there, they themselves would pluck off the hair from
his head, while the sergeants should clap him into
gaol. Nevertheless the Quaker would not be stopped.
Preach he did, standing forth boldly on the high step
of the cross/

‘And what said he?' enquired the older man.

‘Right forcibly he declared judgment on all the
market folk for their deceitful ways. He spoko to the
merchants as if he were a merchant himself, beseech-
ing them to lay aside their false weights and measures
and deceitful merchandize, with all cozening and
cheating, and to speak truth only to one another.
Ever as he spoke, the people flocked closer around
him, hanging on his words as if he were reading their
secret hearts, so that the sergeants could not come
nigh him for the press to lead him away. Thus only
when he had finished he stepped downYrdm the cross
and would have passed gently away, but I and some
of the brethren, thinking that now our turn had come,
264

JAMES & HIS JOURNEYS

followed after him. The contention between us was
sharp. Yet his words struck into me like knives, and
scarce knowing what I did, I cried out aloud, for a
stra^lge power was over me. Thereat he fixed his eyes
upon me and spake sharply to me, as if he kijew that
I was resisting the Spirit of the Lord. I know not
why, but I was forced to cry out again, ^TJo not pierce
me so w«ith thine eyes. Keep thine eyes off me.”’

‘ Wei],’ questioned the elder* man, ‘and what fol-
lowed? Did^his eyes leave thee?’

‘They have neverleftme,’rep’iedtheothen ‘Wher-
ever I go those eyes burn me yet, although tli2 man
himself lies fast in gaol among the thieves and mur>
derers, in the worst and most loathsome of the dun-
geons. Thither I go every day to assure myself that
he is fast caged behind thick walls, and to rejoice my
eyes with the sight of the gibbetnailed high over-head
upon the castle wall. Men say he shall swing there
soon, but of that I know not. Wilt thou come with
me now, for see, the bridge is free?’

‘Not I, ’returned the pastor, moodily, as he shuffled
away, Hke a man ill at ease with himself.

Little James, from his perch on the parapet, had
drunk in greedily every word of this conversation.
Directly the bridge was clear he crept dowm and
followed the deacon like a shadow. They passed
over the silver Eden and up the main street of the
city, paved with rough, uneven stones, and with an
open sewer flowing through the centre of it. Right
across the busy market-place they passed, before the
deacon halted beneath the castle walls.

Full of noise, and hubbub was Carlisle city that
day^ yet, as the two entered the courtyard of the

265

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

castle, James was aware of another sound, rising clear
above the tumult of the toWn — strains of music, surely,
that came from a fiddle. As they stepped under the
inner gateway and approached the Norman Keep,
the fid(fler himself came in sight playing with might
and main, under a barred window about six feet from
the ground. By the fiddler’s side, urging him on, was
a huge, burly man with a red face. Whenever the
fiddler showed signs^of weariness the man beside him
raising a large tankard of ale to his lip§ would force
him to drink of it, saying, ‘Play up, man ! Play up!’

The thin,clearstrains of thefiddleroseup steadily
towards the barred window, but, above them, James
caught another sound that floated yet more steadily
out through the bars : the firm, full tones of a deep
bass voice within, singing loud and strong.

Though he could not see the singer, something in
the song thrilled James through and through. For-
getting his weariness he knew that he was near his
journey’s end at last. As he listened, he noticed a
handful of people, listening also, under the barred
window. '■

Loud jeers arose: ‘Play up, Fiddler!’ ‘Sing on,
Quaker!’ or even, ‘Ply him with more ale. Gaoler: the
prisoner is the better musician!’

At these cries the fat man’s countenance grew ever
more enraged. He looked savage and huge, ‘like a
bear-ward, ’a man more accustomed to deal with bears
than with human beings. Finally, in his wrath, he
turned the now empty tankard upon the crowd and
bespattered them with the last drops of the ale, and
then called lustily for more, with which he plied the
fiddler anew. So the contest continued, but at last,
266

JAMES & HIS JOURNEYS

the ale perhaps taking effect, the fiddler’s head
dropped, his bow swept the Arings more wearily, while
the strong notes inside the dungeon grew ever more
firm and loud. The gaoler seeing, or rather hear-
ing, himself worsted, caught the bow from the ftddler’s
hand and cracked it over his skull. Ihc fiddler,
seizing this chance to escape, leapt to his feet and
dashed dcross the courtyard, followed by the gaoler
and the populace in full chase? Even the sombre
Baptist deacon gathered up the skirts of his long coat
and bestirred his lean legs. The singing ceased. A
face appeared at the window: oulyfoi an instant: but
one glance was enough for James.

Timidly he approached the window, but he had
only taken two steps towards it when he found him-
self firmly elbowed off the pavement and pushed into
the gutter. Someone else also had been watching
for the crowd to disperse, in order to have a chance
of speaking with the prisoner. The new-comer was
a portly lady in a satin gown, a much grander person
than James had expected to find in the near neigh-
bourhcfod of a dungeon. She carried a large, covered
basket, and, as soon as the way was clear, she set it
down on the pavement and began to takeout the con-
tents carefully : bread and salt, beef and elecampane
ale. Without looking up from her work she called
to the unseen figure at the window above her head :
‘So thou hast stopped their vain sounds at length with
thy singing?’

‘Aye, ’answered the deep voice from within. ‘Thou
may est safely approach the window now, for the gaoler
hath departed. After he had beaten thee and the other
Friends with his great cudgel, next he was moved to

267

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

beat me also, through the window, did I but come
near to it to get mymeat.^ And as he struck me I was
moved to sing in the Lord’s power, and that made
him rage the more, whereat he fetched the fiddler,
saying<he would soon drown my noise if I would not
cease.’

‘Eat now, Dear Heart,’ the woman interrupted,
‘whilst thou hast the chance.’ So saying, sh6 handed
some of the dishes Up to the prisoner, standing herself
on tiptoe beneath the prison window in, order to reach
his hand stretched out through the bars.

Here James saw his chance.

‘Madam,’ he cried, ‘let me hand the meat up to
you.’

The lady looked down and saw the worn, thin face.
Perhaps she thought the boy looked hungry enough
to need the food himself, but something in his eager
glance touched her, and when he added, ‘For I have
come one hundred and fifty miles to see george fox,’
her kind heart was won.

‘Nay, then, thou hast a better right to help him
even than I,’ she said, ‘though I am his vefy good
friend and Colonel Benson’s wife. Thou shalt hand
up the dishes to me, and when our friend is satisfied,
thou and I will finish what remains, for in the Lord’s
power I am moved to eat no meat at my own house,
but to share all my sustenance with His faithful ser-
vant who lies within this noisome gaol.’

‘Madam,’ said the boy, speaking with the concen-
trated intensity of weeks of suppressed longing, ‘for
the food, it is no matter, though I am much beholden
to you. I hunger after but one thing. Bring me with-
in the gaol where I may speak with him face to fgce.
268

JAMES & HIS JOURNEYS

There is that, that I havecomeafoot a hundred miles
to ask him.

‘Bring me to him, speedily I pray you, for, though
even unseen I love him,

MUST SEE GEORGE FOX,’

XVIII. THE FIRST
QUAKER MARTYR

{From anotheh point of view i)

Fxtracts from the JDimy of the Rev,
Ralph Josselin, Vicar of Earls
Colne^ Essex,

j6y^, — ^Preacht at Gaines Coin,
the Quakers* nest, hit no disturb-
ance, God hath raised up my heart
not to fear but tvilling to bear and
to make opposition to their ivay^, in
defence of truth,*

Ap, ij,j6y6, — Heard this morn-
ing that Ja7nes Parnell, the father
of the Quakers in thesepa/'ts, having
tmder taken to fast fo 7 'ty days and
forty flights 7 c>as in the morfiing
found dead. He ^vas fy jufy found
guilty of his oivn death and binned
in the Castle yard d
^ Heard and true that Tumief'S
daughter was distract ifi the Qteak-
ing business,*

'‘Sad are the fits at Coxall, like the
pow-7Vozvmg among the Indians,*
1660, — 'The Quakers,after a stop
afid a silence, seem to be szvarmhig
and increased, and ivhy. Lord thou
only knowestf*

‘ So there is no obtainhig of Life but
through Heath, ?ior no obtaining
the Crozvn but through the Cross, ’ —
JAMES PARNELL,

XVIII. THE FIRST
QUAKER MARTYR

H OW Mrs. Benson managed it, there is no
record. Perhaps she hardly knew tuerself!
But she was not a woman to be easily
turned aside from her purpose, and her husband,
ColoneKjervase Benson, had been one of the ^con-
siderable people^ in the County lietore he had turned
Quaker and ^downed those things.’ Even after the
change, it may be that prison dc ors were more easily
unlocked by certain little golden and silver keys in
those days, than they are in our own.

Anyway, somehow or other, the interview was
arranged. * Little James ’ found his desire fulfilled
at last. When he passed into the stiflmg, crowded
prison den, where human beings were herded together
like beasts, he never hea ded the horrible stench or the
crawling vermin that abounded everywhere. Rather,
he felt as if he were entering the palace of a king. He
paid no attention to the crowd of savage figures all
arouncf him. P e saw nothing, knew nothing, felt
nothing, until at last he found that his hand was lying
in the grasp of a stronger, firmer hand, that held it,
and would not let it go. Then, indeed, for the first
time he looked up, and knew that his long journey
was ended, as he met the penetrating gaze of George
Fox.

‘ Keep thine eyes off me, they pierce me,’ the
Baptist Deacon had cried, a few weeks before, in that
same city. As James looked up, he too felt for the
first time the piercing power of those eyes, but to
himjt brought no terror, only Joy, as he yielded him-
T 273

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS*

self wholly to his teacher’s scrutiny. In silence the
two stood, reading each the other’s soul. James felt,
instinctively, that his new friend knew and understood
everything that had happened to him, all his life long;
that th^re was no need to tell him anything, or to
explain anything.

Of an older friendship between two men it was
written, ‘Thy love to me was wonderful, r passing
the love of women.’ Thus it proved once more in that
crowded dungeon. No details remain ^of the inter-
view; no record of what James said, or what George
said. No one else could have reported what passed
between them,' and, though each of them has left a
mention of their first meeting, the silence remains
unbroken.

The Journal says merely: ‘While I was in ye dun-
geon at Carlisle, a little boy, one James Parnell, about
fifteen years old, came to me, and he was convinced
and came to be a very fine minister and turned many
to Christ.’

The boy’s own account is shorter still. He does
not even mention George Fox byname. T waS called
for,’ he says, ‘to visit some friends in the North part
of England, with w’hom I had union before I saw
their faces, and afterwards I returned to my outward
dwelling-place.’

His ‘outward dwelling-place’: the lad’s frail body
might tramp back along the weary miles to Retford;
his spirit remained in the North, freely imprisoned
with his friend.

‘George’ and ‘James’ were brothers in heart, ever
after that short interview in Carlisle Gaol: united in
one inseparable purpose. While George was con-
274

THE FIRST QUAKER MARTYR

fined, James, the free brother, must carry forward
George^s work. Triumphaiftly he did it. By the
following year he had earned his place right well
among the ‘Valiant Sixty ^ who were then sent forth,
‘ East and West and South and North,’ to ‘ Pjiblish
Truth.’

The Eastern Counties, hitherto almost unbroken
ground, fdl to James’s share. Assisted by two other
‘ V aliants, ’Richard Hubberthornefaiid George White-
head,theseed v^as scattered thoughout the length and
breadth of East Anglia. Within three short years
‘gallant Meetings’ were already gathered and settled
everywhere.

James Parnell was the first Quaker preacher to
enter the city of Colchester, v^hich was soon to rank
third among the strongholds ot Quakerism. This
boy of eighteen, still so small and delicate in appear-
ance that his enemies taunted him with the name of
‘ little Quaking lad,’ has left an account of one of his
first crowded days of work in that city. In the morn-
ing, he says, he received any of the townspeople who
were mifided to c ome and ask him questions at bis
lodgings. He was a guest, at the time, of a weaver
named Thomas Shortland, w'ho, with his wife Ann,
had been convinced shortly before, by their guest’s
ministry. In adversity also they were soon to prove
themselves tried and faithful friends.

Later, that same Sunday morning(4th July 1655),
James went down the High Street to Saint Nicholas’
Church, and^when the sermon was ended, preached
to the people in his turn.

In the afternoon ‘he addressed a very great meet-
ing oj about a thousand people, in John Furly’s yard,

275

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

he being mounted above the crowd and speaking out
of a hay-chamber window.’ Still later, that same day,
he not only carried on a discussion with ‘ the town-
lecturer and another priest,’ he, the boy of eighteen,
but also ‘appeared in the evening at a previously
advertised meeting held in the schoolroom for the
children of the French and Flemish weaver refugees
in Colchester, who were being at this time^xiospitably
entertained in Jolfn Furly’s house.’

George Fox says, ‘many hundreds of people were
convinced by the words and labours of this young
minister.’ But, far better than preaching to other
people, he had by this time learned to rule his own
spirit. Once, as he was coming out of the ‘ Steeple-
house of Colchester, called Nicholas,’ one person
in particular struck him with a great staff and said
to him, ‘ Take that for Jesus Christ’s sake,’ to whom
James Parnell meekly replied, ‘ Friend, I do receive
it for Jesus Christ’s sake.’

The journey his soul had travelled from the time,
only three short years before, when he had described
his neighbours as ‘the heathen round ab6ut,’ until
the day that he could give such an answer was per-
haps a longer one really than all the weary miles he
had traversed between Retford and far Carlisle.

The two friends, George and James, had one short
happy time of service together, both of them free.
After that they parted. Then, all too soon it was
George’s turn to visit James, now himself in prison
at Colchester Castle, an even mor^ tprrible prison
than Carlisle, where only death could open the doors
and set the weary prisoner free. George’s record of his

* James Parnell, by C. Fell Spith.

276

THE FIRST QUAKER MARTYR

visit to his friend is short and grim. ‘As I went through
Colchester/ he says, ‘I went fo visit James Parnell in
prison, but the cruel gaolerwould hardly let us come in
or stay with him, and there the gaoler’s wife threatened
to have his blood, and there they did destroy l^im.^

An account, written by his Colchester friends, ex-
pands the terrible, glorious tale of his sufferings.

‘The first Messenger of the Lord that appeared in
this town to sound the everlasting Gospel was that
eminent Minister and Labourer, James Parnell, whose
firstcoming to ye town was in ye fourth month (June)
in the year 1655. . . . Great were the sufferings which
this faithful minister of the Lord underwent, being
beat and abused by many.

‘As touching the cause of Iiis sufferings in this his
last imprisonment unto death, which was the fruits of
a fast kept at Great Coggeshall against error (as they
said), the 1 2 th day of the fifth month 1655, where he
spoke seme words when the priests had done speak-
ing; and wLen he was gone out of the high place one
followed him, called Justice Wakering, and clapt him
on the ifack and said he arrested him. And so, by
the means of divers Independent priests and others,
he was committed to this prison at Colchester. And
in that prison he was kept close up, and his friends
and acquaintance denied tocome athim. Then at the
Assizes he was carried to Chelmsford, about eighteen
miles through the country, as a sport or gazing-stock,
locked on a chain with five accused for felony and
murder, and^he^ with three others remained on the
chain day and night. But when he appeared at the
Bar, he was taken foT the chain, only had irons on his
hand^j, where he appeared before Judge Hill . . . the

277

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

first time. But seeing some cried out against this
cruelty, and what shamfe it would be to let the irons
be seen on him, the next day they took them off, and
he appeared without, where the priests and justices
were Jhe accusers. And the judge gathered what he
could out of what they said, to make what he could
against the prisoner to the jury, and urged them to
find him guilty, lest it fall upon their own heads . . .
And when he would have spoken truth for himself
to inform the jury, the judge would pot permit him
thereto. So the judge fined him about twice twenty
marks, or forty pounds, and said the Lord Protector
had charged him to see to punish such persons as
should contemn either Magistracy or Ministry. So he
committed him close prisoner till payment, and gave
the jailor charge to let no giddy-headed people come
at him; for his friends and those that would have done
him good were called “giddy-headed people, ^’and so
kept out; and such as would abuse him by scorning
or beating, those they let in and set them on. And
the jailor’s wife would set her man to beat him, who
threatened to knock him down and make him shake
his heels, yea, the jailor’s wife did beat him divers
times, and swore she would have his blood, or he
should have hers. To which he answered, “Woman,
I would not have thine.’”*

One of James’ own letters remains written about
this time : ‘The day I came in from the Assize,’ he
says, ‘there was a friend or two with me in the jaylor’s
house, and the jaylor’s wife sent her m^in to call me
from them and to put me into a yard, and would not
suffer my friends to come at me. And one friend

* ‘ Lamb’s Defence against Lyes. ’

278

THE FIRST QUAKER MARTYR

brought me water, and they would not suffer her to
come to me, but made hei^carry it back again.’

The name of this woman Friend is not given in
this letter, but I daresay we shall not be far wrong if
we fill it in for ourselves here, and think of her as the

i

same Anne Iiangley, who would not bf‘ kept out of
the prison later on. Other people mention her by
name. Ti is only in little James’ own account that her
name does not appear. Perhaps the tie that bound
them was soinething more than friendship, and he did
not wish her to suffer for her love and faith.

James’ letter continues: ‘At night they locked me
up into a hole With a condemned man . . . and the
same day a friend desired the jaylor’s wife that she
would let her come and speak w ith me, and the jaylor’s
wife answered her and the other friends who were with
her, calling them “Rogues, wdtches . . . and the devil’s
dish washers” . . . and other names, and saying “that
they had skipped out of hell when the devil was
asleep!” and much more of the same unchristian-like
speeches which is too tedious to relate . . . And thus
they rjftake a prey upon the innocent; and when they
do let any come to me they would not let them stay
but very little,’ (Poor James! the visits were all too
short, and the lonely hours alone all too long for the
prisoner) ‘and the jaylor’s wife would threaten to
pull them down the stairs. . . . And swore that she
would have my blood several times, and told my friends
so, and that she would mark my face, calling me witch
and rogue^ shake hell . . . and the like; and because I
did reprove her for her wickedness, the jaylor hath giv-
en order that npne shall come to me at any occasion,
but only one or two that brings my food.’

279

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Even this small mercy was not to be allowed much
longer. The account of the Colchester Friend con-
tinues: ‘And sometimes they would stop any from
bringing him victuals, and set the prisoners to take his
victuals from him ; and when he would have had a
trundle Sed to have kept him off the stones, they would
not suffer friends to bring him one, but forced him to
lie on the stones, which sometimes would ri*n down
with water in a wet season. And when he was in a room
for which he paid 46.. a night, he was threatened, if
he did but walk to and fro in it, by the jaylor’s wife.
Then they put him in a hole in the wall, very high,
where the ladder was too short by about six foot, and
when friends would have given him a cord and basket
to have taken up his victuals, he was denied thereof
and could not be suffered to have it, though it was
much desired, but he must either come up and down
by that rope, or else famish in the hole, which he did
a long time, before God suffered them to see their de-
sires in which time much means was used about it,
but their wills were unalterably set in cruelty towards
him. But after long suffering in this hole, whert there
was nought but misery as to the outward man, being
no hole either for air or for smoke, being much be-
numbed in the naturals, as he was climbing up the
ladder with his victuals in one hand, and coming to
the top of the ladder, catching at the rope with the
other hand, missed the rope, and fell a very great height
upon stones, by wh ich fall he was exceedingly wounded
in the head and arms, andhis body much bruised, and
taken up for dead, but did recover again that time.

‘Then they put him in a low hole called the oven,
and much like an oven, and some have said who have
280

THE FIRST QUAKER MARTYR

been in it that they have seen a baker’s oven much
bigger, except for the height* of the roof, without the
least airhole or window for smoke and air, nor would
they suffer him to have a little charcoal brought in by
friends to prevent the noisome smoke. Nor^oald
they suffer him. after he was a little recovered, to take
a little air upon the castle wad, which was but once
desired blithe prisoner, feeling himself spent for want
of breath. All which he bore within ach patience and
still kept his suffering much from friends there, see-
ing they was much sorrowful to see it. Yea, others
who were no friends were wounded at the sight rf his
usage in many otuer particulars, which we forbear
here to mention.

‘And divers came to see him, v;ho heard of his usage
from far, not being friends, had liberty to see him, who
was astonislied at his usage, and some of them would
say “if this be the usage of the protector’s

PRISONERS it were BETTER TO BE ANYBODY’S PRISON-
ER? THAN HIS,” as Justice Barrington’s daughter said,
who saw their cruelty to him. And many who came
to see hhn were moved with pity to the creature, for
his sufferings w^ere great.’

‘And although some did offer of their bond of forty
pounds [to pay the fine and so set him at liberty] and
one to lie body for body, that he might come to their
house till he was a little recovered, yet they would not
permit it, and it being desired that he might but walk
in the yard, it was answex'ed he should not walk so
much as to the castle door. And the door being once
opened, he*(lid*but take the freedom to walk forth in
a close, stinking yard before the door, and the gaoler
came in a rage and locked up the hole where he lay,

?8i

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

and shut him out in the yard all night in thexoldest
time of the winter. So, ^finding that nothing but his
blood would satisfy them, great application was made
to them in a superior authority but to no purpose.
Thus he having endured about ten months’ imprison-
ment, and having passed through many trials and
exercises, which the Lord enabled him to bear with
courage and faithfulness, he laid down h^ head in
peace and died a prisoner and faithful Martyr for the
sake of the Truth, under the hands of a persecuting
generation in the year 1656.’*

It was his former host, Thomas Shortland the
weaver, who had offered to lie ‘body for body’ in
prison, if only James might be allowed to return to
his house and be nursed back to health again there.
After the boy’s death this kind man wrote as follows :

‘Dear Friend — In answer to thine, is this, James
Parnell being dead, the Coroner sent an officer for
me, and one Anne Langley, a friend, who both of us
watched with him that night that he departed. And
coming to him [the Coroner] he said, “that it was
usual when any died in prison, to have a juiy got on
them,” and James being dead, and he hearing we two
watched with him, he sent for us to hear what we
could say concerning his death, whether he died on
his fair death [i.e, a natural death] or whether he
were guilty of his own death. . . . He asked whether
he had his senses and how he behaved himself late-
ward toward his departure. I answered that he had
his senses and that he spake sensibly, and to as good
understanding as he used to do. tftbn enquired
what words he spoke. To which Anne Langley

* Firsl Publishers of Truth.

282

TH^ FIRST QUAKER MARTYR

answered that she heard him say, '‘piere i die in-
nocently,” and she said that she had been at the
departing of many, but never was where was such
sweet departing; and at his departing his last words
were, “now i must go,” and turned his he^d to me
and said, “thomas, this death i must die,” and
further said, “othomas, ihave seen great things,”
and bade me that I should not hold him, but let him
go, and said it over again, “wiLiivou not hold me?”
And then ss^d Anne, “Dear Heart, we will not hold
thee.” And he said, “ now i co,” and stretched out
himself, and fell into a sweet sleep and slepi. about
an hour (as he often said, that one hour's sleep would
cure him of all), and so drew breath no more.'

Little James was free at last. He h^'d left his frail,
weary body behind and had departed on the longest,
shortest journey of all. A journey this, ending in no
noisome den in Carlisle Casiie, as when he first saw
the earthly teacher he had loved so long, but leading
straight and swift to the heavenly abiding-places:
to theVelcomt' of his unseen yet Everlasting Friend

‘ How know I thaf it looms lovely, that land I have never seen,
With morning-glory and heartsease, and unexampled green ?
All souls singing, seeing, rejoicing everywhere.

Yea, much more than this I know, for I know that Christ
is there.’*

Christina Rossetti,

XIX. THE children
OF READING
MEETING

*And all must be meeke^ sober and
jentell and quiet and lovmg^ and not
give one another^ ad word no e time
in the skouell^ nor out of it ,, , all
is to mind their lessons and be dige-
lent in their rightings, and to layup
» their boukes when they go fro7?i the
skouelland therpensa^id mkonerfis
a7id to keep them so7v, else they must
be louktd upon as carles a 7id Slovenes; i
and soe you must keep all things
clean^ S7ut a7id neat and hansonl —
G, FOX. Advice to Schoolmasteh,

Dear and tender little Babes., as
well as strong men., ... let not any-
thing straiten you., lidien Godmovcs :
And thou^ faithful Babe., though
thou stutter and stajfimer fo7dh a
few 7Vords in the dread of the Lord,
they are accepted, and all that are
strong, serve the weakinstrengthcfi-
ingtheni and ivait in 7oisdom to give
place to the motion of the Spirit m
them, that it 7?iayhave time to bring
forth zvhatGod hath given . . . that
. . . you 7? lay be a ivell spiBig of Lift
to 07ie another in thcpo7ver of the end-
less love of God I — w. dews bury.

When the Justices th7'eatened
Friend John Boult and told him
that he aiid other Readi7ig Friends
should be sent to prison, he 7'eplied:
^^Thafs the 7veakest thing thou
canst do. Lf thou canst cofivince me
of anything that is evil, Lwill %edi^
thee aiid let the prisons aloneP'

IV. C. BRAITHIVAITE.

XIX. THE CHILDREN
OF READIFJG MEET-
ING

I T was a most uncomfortable First Day morning.
The children looked at each other and wondered
what# would happen next, as they stood in the
small bedroom under the thatched roof. Dorcas, the
eldest, already half dressed, held Faby Stephen in her
arms; but the twins, Tryphena . nd Tryphosa, were
running about the floor with bare feet and only .heir
petticoats on, strings and tapes all flying loose. Baby
was crying, whilst the Twinsshouted^\ith mischievous
glee. Something must be done. So Dorcas seated
herself in a big chair and tried to dress Baby. But
Baby was hungry. He wanted his breakfast and he
did not at all want to be dressed ! Oh, if only Mother
was here! Where was Mother all this long time? Had
she and Father really been taken to prison? Dorcas
felt heart-sick at the thought. Happily the Twins and
Baby wtfre too liri.le to understand. She herself was
nearly ten and therefore almost grown up. She under-
stood now all about it quite well. This was what Mother
had meant when she bent down to kiss her little girl
in bed last night, saying that she was going out to a
Meeting at Friend Curtis’ house, hoping to be back
in an hour or two. ‘But if not’ — here Dorcas remem-
bered that Mother’s eyes had filled with tears. She
had left the sentence unfinished, adding only : ‘ Any-
way, I know I can trust thee, Dorcas, to be a little
mother to the litfle ones while I am away.’ ‘But if
not. ^ Dorcas had been too sleepy last night to

287

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

think what the words meant, or to keep awake until
Mother’s return. It seemed as if she had only just
closed her eyes for a minute or two ; and yet, when
she opened them again, the bright morning sunlight
was filing the room.

‘But if not . . After all, there had been no
need for Mother to finish the sentence. Now that
Dorcas was wide awake she could complete it for
herself only too well. For Dorcas knew that at any
moment a Meeting of five or more persons who met
to practise a form of worship not authorized by law
might be rudely interrupted by the constables, and
all the Friends who were sitting in silence together
dragged off to prison for disobeying the Quaker Act.
Since that Act had been passed in this same month
of May 1662, Quaker children understood that
this might happen at any moment, but of course
each child hoped that it would not happen just yet,
or at least not to his own Father and Mother. But
now apparently it had happened here in peaceful
Reading beside the broad Thames.

Last night’s Meeting had been fixed at an unusually
late hour. For, as the late Spring evenings were
lengthening, the Reading Quakers had wished to
take advantage of the long May twilight to gather
together and meet with a Friend, one of the Valiant
Sixty, who had come in for a few hours unexpectedly
on his way to London. So the children had fallen
asleep as usual, fully expecting to find their parents
beside them when they woke. But now the empty
places and the unslept-in beds told thefr own tale.

‘Be a mother to the little ones, Dorcas,’ Mother
had said. Well, Dorcas was trying her very best, but
288

THE CHILDREN OF READING

it was not easy. Baby had many strings to tie and
many buttons to fasten, an& just as she was getting
the very last button safely into its button-hole the
Twins came running up to say that they had got into
each other’s clothes by mistake and could pot get
out of them again. This was serious; for though
Phenie’s frock was only a little too big for Phosie,
Phosie’s/rock was much too small for Phenie.

Dorcas was obliged to put Baby down to attend
to them; bu^ this reminded Baby that he had still
not been provided with his much-desired breakfast,
whereupon he began to howl, till Dorcas took him up
in her arms agaiii, and dandled him as Mother did.
This made him crow for happiness, just as he did
when Mother took him, so for a few minutes Dorcas
was happy too, till she saw that the Twins were now
beginning to squabble again, and to tear out each
other’s hair with the comb. At that unlucky moment
up came brother Peter’s big voice calling from below,
‘Dorcas, Dorcas, what are you all doing up there?
Why is not breakfast ready? I have milked the cow
for you. You must come down this very minute; 1
am starving ! ’

It was an uncomfortable morning; and the worst
of it was that it was First Day morning too. Dorcas
had not known before that a First Day morning
could be uncomfortable. Usually First Day was the
happiest day in the whole week. Mother’s hands
were so gentle that, though the children had been
taught to hpl^ themselves as soon as they were old
enough, Sill Mother always seemed to know just
when there was an unruly button that needed a little
coaxing to help it to find its hole, or a string that
u 289

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

wanted to get into a knot that ought to be persuaded
to tie itself into a bow.

Then breakfast was always a pleasant meal, with
the big blue bowls full of milk, warm from the cow,
set ouf on the wooden table, and Father sitting at
one end raising his hand as he said a silent Grace.
Father never said any words at these times. But he
bent his head as if he were thanking Someone he
loved very much, -Someone close beside him, for
giving him the milk and bread to give t,o the children
and for making him very happy. So the children felt
happy too. Dorcas thought that the brown bread
alwaj^s tasted especially good on First Day morning,
because Father was at the head of the table to cut it
and hand it to them himself. On other, week-day,
mornings he had to go off much earlier, ploughing, or
reaping, or gathering in the ripe corn from the harvest-
fields behind the farm. Also, Peter never teased the
little ones when Father was there. But to-day if there
were no breakfast, (and where was breakfast to come
from?) Peter would be dreadfully cross. Yet how
could Dorcas go and get breakfast for Peter when the
ithree little ones were all wanting her help at once?

‘I’m coming, Peter, as fast as ever I can,* she
called back, in answer to a second yet more per-
emptory summons. But, oh! how glad she was to
hear a gentle knock at the door of the thatched
cottage a minute or two later.

‘Come in! come in!* she heard Peter saying joy-
fully as he opened the door, and then can?e the sound
of light footsteps on the wooden stairs. Another min-
ute, and the bedroom door opened gently, and a sun-
shiny face looked into the children’s untidy room.
290

THE CHILDREN OF READING

‘Why, it is thee, Hester T Dorcas exclaimed, with
a cry of joy. ‘Oh, I anj glad to see thee ! And how
glad Mother would be to know theu wert here.’

The girl who entered was both talle** and older
than Dorcas. She was a well-loved playfellqjv evid-
ently, for Tiyphe.na and T^yphosa toddled towards
her across the room, at once, to be caught up in her
arms anci kissed.

‘Of coui je, it is I, Dorcas, \she^nswered promptly
‘Who else shi^uld it be? Prudence and I determined
that we would come over arid try to help thee as
soon as w.e coul' b We brought a basket of provisions
too, in case you were short. Prudence is helping
Peter to set out breakfast in the kitchen now, so we
must hasten.’

Life often becomes easy when you are two, how-
ever difficult it may have been when you weie only
one! With Hester to help, the dressing was finished
at lightning speed. Yet, when the children came
down to the kitchen. Prudence and Peter already
had the fire blazing away merrily ; the warm milk was
foaming in the oowls. The hungry children thought,
as they drank it up, that never before had breakfast
tasted so good.

‘ H ester, what made thee think of coming ? ’ Dorcas
asked a little later, when, Baby’s imperious needs
being satisfied, she was able to begin her own break
fast, while he drummed an accompaniment on the
back of her hand with a wooden spoon. ‘ How did
the news reach^thee? Or have they taken thy Father'
and Mother away too? Have all the Friends gone
to gaol this time?’

Hester nodded. Her bright face clouded for a

29 J

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

moment or two. Then she resolutely brushed the
cloud away.

‘Yea, in truth, Dorcas,’ she answered. T fear
much that only we children are left. Anyhow, thy
parenjs and mine are taken, and the others as well
most like. My Father had warning from a trusty
source that he and other Friends had best not
meet in Thomas Curtis’ house last night, t But he is
never one to be turned aside from his purpose, thou
knows. So he took me between his l^nees and said,
“ Hester, dear maid, thy mother and I must go. ’Tis
none of our choosing. If we are taken, fear not for
us, nor for thyself and Prue. Only seek to nourish
and care for the tender babes in the other houses,
whence Friends are likely to be taken also.” There-
fore I hastened hither to help thee, Dorcas, bringing
Prudence with me, partly because I love thee, and
thou art mine own dear friend, but also because it
was my Father’s command. If I can be of service to
thee, perhaps he will pat my head when he returns
out of gaol and say, as he doth sometimes, “I knew
I could trust thee, my Hester.”’ ^

‘Will they be long in prison, dost thou think?’
asked Dorcas, with a tremor in her voice. She was
always an anxious-minded little girl, and inclined to
look on the gloomy side of things, whereas Hester
was sunshine itself.

‘Who can say? ’answered Hester, and again even
her bright face clouded. ‘The Justices are sure to
tender to them the oath, but since they follow Him
who commanded, “Swear not at all,” how can they
take it?’

‘Then, if they refuse, they will be said to bi5 out
292

THE CHILDREN OF READING

of the King’s protection, and the Justices and the
gaolers may do with them as they will,’ added Peter
doggedly.

At these words Hester, seeing that Dorcas looked
very sorrowful and almost ready to cry, cljecked
Peter suddenly, and said, ^At any rate, we can but
hope for the best. And now we must hasten, or we
shall be l*te tor Meeting.’

‘Meeting?’ Dorcas looked ftp in surprise. ‘I
thought ihou^aidst that all the Friends had been
taken.’

‘All t^e me ; and ’Aomen, yes,’ answered Hester;

‘ but we cliildren are left. Wc know what our Fathers
and Mothers would have us do.’

Here Peter broke in, ‘Yes, of course, Dorcas, we
must go to show them that Friends are not cowards,
and that we will keep up our Meetings come what
may. Dost thou not mind what friend Thomas
Curtis’ wife, Mistress Nan, has often told us of her
father, the Sheriff of Bristol? How he was hung be-
fore his own door, because men said he was endeav-
ouring fo betray the city to Prince Rupert, and thus
serve his king in banishment. Shall we be less loyal
than he?’

‘Loyal to our King, Dorcas,’ added Hester gently,

Dorcas hesitated no longer.

‘Thou art right, Hester,’she answered, ‘and Peter,
thou art right too. We will go all together. I had for-
gotten. Of course children as well as grown-up people
can wait iy:)onpod.’

The children arrived at the Friends’ usual meeting
place, only to find it locked and strongly guarded

293

A b60K of QUAKER SAINTS

They went on, undismayed, to Friend Lamboirs’
orchard, but, there also, two heavy padlocks, sealed
with the King’s seal, were upon the green gate. An
old goody from a cottage hard by waved them away.
‘Be off, children ! Here is no place for you,’ she said;
adding not unkindly, ‘your parents were taken near
here yester eve, and the officers of the law are still
prowling round. This orchard is sure toibe one of
the first places they will visit.’

Then seeing the tired look on Dorcas’ face, as she
turned to go, with heavy Stephen in her arms : ‘Here,
give the babe to me,’ she said, ‘I’ll care for him this
forenoon. Thy mother managed to get a word with
me last night as the officers dragged her away, and I
promised her I would do what I could to help you,
though you be Quakers and I hold to the Church.
See, he’ll be safe in this cradle while you go and play,
though it is forty years and more since it held a babe
of my own.’

Very thankfully Dorcas laid Stephen, now sleep-
ing peacefully, down in the oaken cradle in the old
woman’s flagged kitchen. Then she ran off to Join the
others assembled at a little distance from the orchard
gate. By this time a few more children had joined
them : two or three girls, and four or five older boys.

Where were they to meet? The sight of the closed
house, and the sealed gate, even the mention of the
officers of the law, far from frightening the children,
had only made them more than ever clear that, some-
where or other, the Meeting must be held.

At length one of the elder boys suggested ‘My
father’s granary ? ’ The very place ! — they all agreed:
so thither the little flock of children trooped. Jhe
294

THE CHILDREN OF READING

granary was a large, building of grey stone lighted
only by two mullioned windows high up in the walls.
In Queen Elizabeth’s days these windows had lighted
the small rooms of an upper storey, but now the divid-
ing floor had been removed to make more room for
the grain which lay piled no as high as the roof over
more than half the building. But, at one end, there
was an eippty space on the floor, and here the children
seated iheinselvef^ on scattered bundles of hay.

Quietly Meeting began. At first some of the
children peeped up at one another anxiously under
their eyelids. It feh. very strange somehow to
be gathering together in silence alone without any
grown-up people. Were they really doing right? Dor-
cas’ heart began to beat rather nervously, and a hot
flush dyed her cheek, until she looked across at
Hester sitting opposite, and was calmed by the peace-
ful expression of the elder girl’s face. Hester’s hood
had fallen back upon her shoulders. Her fair hair,
slightly ruffled, shone like a halo of pale gold against
the grey stone wall of the granary. Her blue eyes were
looking up, u.j at the blue sky, far away beyond the
high window.

‘Hester looks happy, almost as if she were listen-
ing to something,’ Dorcas said to herself, ‘some-
thing that comforts her although we are all sad.’ Then,
settling herself cosiiydown into the hay, ‘Now I will
try to listen for comfort too.’

A few moments later the silence was broken by a
hajf-whispeted prayer from a dark corner of the gran-
ary, ‘ Our dear, dear parents ! help them to be brave
and faithful, aifid make us all brave and faithful too.’

None of the boys and girls looked round to see

295

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

who had spoken, for the words seemed to come from
the deepest place in their own hearts.

Swiftly and speedily the children’s prayer was am
swered. Help was given to them, but they needed
every scrap of their courage and faith during the next
half-hour. Almost before the last words of the prayer
died away, a loud noise was heard and the tramp of
heavy feet coming round the granary wall. cThe offi-
cers of the law wer&upon them: ‘What, yet another
conventicle of these pestilential heretic^ to be broken
up?’ shouted a wrathful voice. The next moment the
door w'as roughly burst open, and in the doorway ap-
peared a much dreaded figure, no less a person than
Sir William Armorer himself. Justice of the Peace and
Equerry to the King. None of the children had any
very clear idea as to the meaning of that word ‘equer-
ry’; therefore it always filled them with a vague terror
of unknown possibilities. In after years, whenever
they heard it they saw again an angry man with a florid
face, dressed in a suit of apple-green satin slashed
with gold, standing in a doorway and wrathfully shak-
ing a loaded cane over their heads. *

‘Yet more of ye itching to be laid by the ears in
gaol!’ shouted this apparition as he entered and
slammed the heavy wooden door behind him. But
an expression of amazement followed when he was
once inside the room.

‘Brats! By my life! Quakerbrats! andnonebeside
them !’ he exclaimed astonished, as he looked round
the band of children. ‘Quaker brats holding a con-
venticle of their own, as if they were grown men and
women ! Having stopped the earth and gaoled the
fox, must we now deal with the litter? Look you
296

THE CHILDREN OF READING

here, do yoti waut a closer acquaintance with this?’

With these words, be pointed his loaded stick at
each of thechildren in turn and d»'ewouta sharp iron
point concealed in one end of it, and began to slash
the air. Then, changing his mind again, l^e went
back to the door and call' d out to his followers in
the passage outside, ‘Here, men^ we will let the maid-
ens go, but you must teach the‘5e hds what it is to
disobey the law, or I’m no Justice of His Majesty’s
Peace.’ .

Even in that moment of terror the children
wondered not nly at the loud angry voice but at the
unfamiliar scent that filled the room. The air, which
had been pure and fragrant with the smell of hay, was
now heavy and loaded with essences and perfumes.
Well it might be, for though the children knew it not,
the flowing lovelocks of the curly wig that descended
to the Justice’s shoulders had been scented that very
morning with odours of ambergris, musk, and violet,
orris root, orange flowers, and jessamine, as well as
others besides. The stronger scents of kennel and
stable,^nd even of ale and beer, that filled the room
as the constables trooped into it were almost a relief
lo the children, because they at least were familiar
and unlike the other strange, sickly fragrance.

The constables seized the boys, turned them out
into the road, and there punched and beat them with
their own staffs and the Justice’s loaded stick until
they were black in the face. The girls were driven in a
frightened ^r^ch down the lane. Only Hester sat on
in her place, still and unmoved, sheltering the Twins
in her bosom and holding her hands over their eyes.
Up to her came the ajigry Justice in a fine rage, until

297

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

it seemed as if the perfumed wig must almost touch
her smooth plaits of hair. Then, at last, Hester moved,
but not in time to prevent the Justice seizing her by
the shoulder and flinging her down the road after the
others. ^ Her frightened charges, torn from her arms,
still clung to her skirts, while the full-grown men
strode along after them, threatening to duck them all
in the pond if they made the slightest resistsnce, and
did not at once disperse to their homes.

It certainly was neither a comfortable thing nor a
pleasant thing to be a Quaker child in those stormy
days.

Nevertheless, pleasanter unpleasant, comfortable
oruncomfortable, made no difference. It was thanks
to the courage of this handful of boys and girls that,
in spite of the worst that Mr. Justice Armorer could
do, in spite of the dread of him and his constables,
in spite of his angry face, of his scented wig and loaded
cane, in spite of all these things, — still, Sunday after
Sunday, through many a long anxious month, God
was worshipped in freedom and simplicity in the town
by silver Thames. Reading Meeting was held.

Meantime, throughout these same long months,
within the prison walls the fathers and mothers prayed
for their absent children. Although apart from one
another, the two companies were not really separ-
ated; for both were listening to the same Shepherd’s
voice. Until, at last, the happy day came when the
gaol-doors were opened and the prisoners released.
Then, oh the kissing and the hugging the crying and
the blessing ! as the parents heard of all the children
had undergone in order to keep faithful and true!
That was indeed the most joyful meeting of all!,

298

THE CHILDREN OF READING

Thankfulnesc and joy Jast freshly through the
centuries, as an old letter, written at that time by
one of the fathers to George Fox still proves to us to-
day : ‘Our little children kept the meetings up. when
we were all in prison, notwithstanding that jvicked
Justice when he came and found them there, with a
staff that had a spear in it would pull them out of the
Mceting,#an(i punch them in the back till some of
them were black in the free . . • his fellow is not, I
believe, found in all England a Justice of the
Peace.’

‘For they might as well think to hinder the Sun
from shining, or tne tide from flowing, as to think to
hinder the Lord’s people from meeting to wait upon
Him.’

XX. THE SADDEST
STORY OF ALL

‘ Take heed of forward minds, and
of runnifigout before your guide, for
that leads out into looseness; afid
such plead for liberty, and run out
in their wills and bring dishonour
to the Lord? ....

'‘And take heed if under a pretence
of Liberty you do not set up
that both in yourselves a7id on others
that will he hard to get down again. ’
— G. FOX. ‘

‘ The Truth in this city spreads a?id
dourisheth; 7nany large meetings
we have, and great 07ies of the world
come, to them, and are much tendered,
fames is fitted for this great place,
a7id a great love is begotten towards

hirnl A. PARKER toM. Fell, 1655

i^from London,before Naylefs fall).

'‘His forebearing hi due tifuc to
testify against the folly of those his
followers (who niagnified hm) ivas
his great weakness and loss of judg-
ment, and brought the greatest stiff er-
ing upon him, Poor M an! Though
when he ivas delivered out of the
snare, he did condemn all their wild
and mad actio?is towards him ana
judged himself also. IL mbcit our ad-
versaries and persecutors unjustly
took occasion thereupon, to triumph
and insult, and to reproach and
roar against Quakers, though as a
People (they were) w holly unco?icern-
ed and clear from those offenc^^.

G. WHITEHEAD.

'And so His will is my peace .' —

JAMES NAYLER.

XX. THE SADDEST
STORY OF ALL
BUT IT HAS A HAPPY END

C N Hl LiDP-EN — come close. Let us holfi hands
and gathe** round the fire. This story must
Ipe told in the twilight, while the room is all
dark except for the dim glow ot the coals. Then, if
a few tears do run down our cheeks — no one will
see them. And presently the lamp will come in, tlie
darkness will v'^nish, and the story will end happily —
as most stories do if we could only carry them on
lar enough. Vv hat makes the sadness to us, often, is
that we only see such a lictle bit of the way.

I'his is the story of a man who made terrible
mistakes, and suffered a terrible punishment. But,
through his sufferings, and perhaps even through the
great mistakes he made, he learned some lessons that
he might never have learned in any other way. His
name was James Nayler. He was born in 1 6 1 6, and
was th^ son cl a well-to-do farmer in Yorkshire. He
was ‘educated in good English,’ and learned to write
and speak well. His early life seems to have been
uneventful. At the age of 22 he married, and settled
near Wakefield with his young wife, Anne. After a
few years of happy married life, the long dispute be-
tween King Charles and his Parliament finally broke
out into Civil War. The old peaceful life of the coun-
tryside was^t an end. Everywhere men were called
upon to talce sides and to arm. James Nayler was one
of the first to (answer that call. He enlisted in the
Parjiamentary Army under Lord Fairfax, and spent

' 303

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

the next nine or ten years as a soldier. Under General
Lambert he rose to be quartermaster, and the prospect
of attaining still higher military rank was before him
when his health broke down and he was obliged to
return home.

A little later he made a friend. One eventful
Sunday in 1652 ‘the Man in Leather Breeches’
visited Wakefield, and came to the ‘Steeple-house’
where Nayler had been accustomed to worship with
his family. Directly the sermon was finished, all
the people in the church pointed at the Stranger, and
called him to come up to the priest. Fox rose, as
his custom was, and began to ‘declare the word of
life.’ He went on to say that he thought the priest
who had been preaching had been deceiving his
hearers in some parts of his sermon. Naturally the
priest who had spoken did not like this, and although
some of the congregation agreed with Fox, and felt
that ‘they could have listened to him for ever,’ most
of the people hated the Stranger for his words. They
rushed at Fox, punching and beating him ; then, cry-
ing, ‘Let us have him in the stocks !’ they thrust him
out of the door of the church. Once in the cool fresh
air, however, the crowd became less violent. Their
mood changed. Instead of hustling their unresisting
visitor through the town and clapping him into the
stocks, they loosed their hold of him and suffered
him to go quietly away.

As he departed, George Fox came upon another
group of people assembled at a little distance. These
were the men and women who had listened to him
gladly in church, who now wished to hear more of the
new truths he had been declaring. Among them was

304

THE SADDEST STORY OF ALL

James Nayler, a man older than Fox, who had been
convinced by him a yearearlier. This second visit, bo w-
ever, clinched NayleFs allegiance to his new friend.
Possibly, having been a soldier himself, he began by
admiring Fox’s courage. Here was a man who le-
fusea to strike a single blow in self-defence, ^^e was
apparently quite ready to let the angry mob do what
they would, and yet in the end he managed to quell
their rage by the force of his own spiritual power.
The Journal simply says that a great many people
were convinced that day of the truth of the Quaker
preaching, and 'hat They were directed to the Lord’s
teaching in themselves'

Hereupon the priest of the church became very
angry. He spread abroad many untrue stories about
Fox, saying that he ‘carried bottles with him, and
made people drink of them and so made them follow
him and become Quakers.’

At Wake field, also, in those days, as well as farther
North, ‘enchantment’ was the first and simplest
explanation of anything unusual. This same priest
also sai(f that Fox rode upon a great black horse, and
was seen ridingupon it in one county at a certain time,
and was also seen on the same horse and at the very
same time in another county sixty miles away.

‘With these lies,’ says Fox, ‘he fed his people,
to make them think evil of the tiuvh which I had
declared amongst them. But by those lies he
preached many of his hearers away from him, for
I was travelling^ on foot and had no horse ; which
the people generally knew.’

James Naylej at any rate decided to become one
of F b]j’s followers, and ^let the priest do his worst. It
X 305

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

may havefceen at his house that George Fox lodged
that night, thankful for its shelter, having slept under
a hedge the night before. When Fox left, Nayler did
not go with him, but remained quietly at home. Hav-
ing b^een a farmer’s son before he became a soldier,
he quietly returned to his farming when he left the
army. One day in early spring, a few months* after
Fox’s visit, as James Nayler was driving^the plough
and thinking of the things of God, he heard a Voice
calling to him through the silence,, telling him to
leave his home and his relations, for God would be
with him. At first James Nayler rejoiced exceeding-
ly because he had heard the Voice of God, but when
he considered how much he would have to give up
if he left home, he tried to put the command aside.
Nothing that he undertook prospered with him after
this ; he fell ill and nearly died, till at last he was made
willing to surrender his own will utterly and go out,
ready to do God’s will, day by day and hour by hour,
as it should be revealed to him. ‘And so he contin-
ued, not knowing one day what he was to do the
next; and the promise of God that He would be with
him, he found made good to him every day,’ These
are his own words. His inward guidance led him in-
to the west of England, and there he found George
Fox.

After this Nayler and Fox were often together.
Sometimes Nayler would take a long journey to see
Fox when he was staying with his dear friends at
Swarthmoor. Sometimes they wrotg beautiful letters
to each other. Here is one from Nayler to Fox that
might have been written to us to-day :

‘Dear hearts, you make ^ your own trout^les by
306

THE SADDEST STORY OF ALL

feeing unwilling anddisob^ient to that which w^uld
lead you safe. There is no way but to go hand in
hand with Him in all things, running after Hka with-
out fear or considering, leaving the whole work only
to Him. If He seem to smile, follow Him in fear and
love, and if He seem to frown, follow Him and fall
into His will, and you shall see He is yours still, —
for He will prove His own.*

Nayler's adventurous journe^ with Fox to Walney
Island must have drawn their friendship closer than
ever.. In spite of hardships these were happy days
as they went al :mt the country together on God*s
errands. But these days came to an end.

You see, Nayler had not found his faith after a
long struggle as George Fox had done. Perhaps he
had accepted it a little too eashy, and too confidently,
in his own strength. He was a splendid, brilliant
preacher, and he loved arguing for his new belief in
public. Once, in Derbyshire, in an argument with
some ministers, he got so much the best of it that
the crowd was delighted and cried out, ‘A Nailer, a
Nailer liath confuted them all*

Another time, when he was attending a meeting
at a Friend’s house, he says that ‘hundreds of vain
people continued all the while throwing great stones
in at the window, but we were kept in great peace
withii|.* It would be rather difficult to sit quite still
and ‘think meeting thoughts* with large stones flying
through the windows, would it not?

Once^w^iea I was at a service on board ship, a few
years ^go, a tremendous wave broke through the port-
hole and splashed the kneeling men and women on
that-side of the salo«>n. They were so startled that

307

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS'

nearly all of them jumped, and one called out quite
loudly, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ But theclergyman went on
quietly reading the service, and very soon everything
became still and quiet again.

Jarnes Nayler also continued to give his mess-
age of stillness and calm, and the gathered people,
listening to him intently, forgot to think about
the stones. He must have had a great d^al of that
strange quality that we call magnetism. Just as a
magnet attracts bits of iron to it, so sorqe people have
the power of attracting others to listen to them and
love them. Fox was the most powerful magnet of all
the Quaker preachers. He attracted people in thous-
ands all over the country. But Nayler seems to have
had a great deal of magnetism too, though it was of
a different kind. For one thing he was handsomer
to look at than Fox. He is described as ‘of ruddy
complexion and medium height, with long, low hang-
ing brown hair, oval face, and nose that rose a little
in the middle: he wore a small band close to his col-
lar, but no band strings, and a hat that hung over his
brows.’ *

But it would have been happier for him if he had
not been so good-looking, as you will see presently.
He must have had much charm of manner, too. A
court lady, Abigail, Lady Darcy, invited him to her
house to preach, and there, beside all the people who
had assembled to hear him, many other much grand-
er listeners were also present although unseen, ‘lords,
ladies, officers, and ministers.’ , .

These great people, not wishing it to be jcnown
that they came to listen to the Quaker preacher, were
hidden away behind a ceiling.^ Nayler himself must
308

THE SADDEST STORY OF ALL

haveknownof tbeirpresenc^jsincehementions it ina
letter, though he does not explain how a ceiling could
be a hiding-place. He spoke to them afterwards of
the Voice that had called him as he was ploughing in
the fields at home. The ;e fine lords and ladies could
not understand what he L^eant, ‘A Voice, a Voice?’
they asked him, ‘but did you really hear it?’ ‘Aye,
verily, I 4id hear it,’ he replied m such solemn tones
that they wondered more than evdi: what he meant; and
perhaps they began to listen too for the Inner Voice.

The dlscoverythathe, a humble Quaker preacher,
could attract ill this attention did James Nayler
harm. Instead of remembering only the thankfulness
and joy of being entrusted with his Master’s message,
he allowed small, lower feelings to creep into his heart:
‘What a good messenger I am ! Don’t I preach well?
Far grander people throng to hear me than to any
other Quaker minister’s sermons! ’

Another temptation came to him through his good
looks. He was evidently getting to think altogether
too much about himself It was James Nayler this
and James Nayler that, far too much about James
Nayler. Also, some of his friends were foolish, and
did not help him. The interesting thing about James
Nayler is that his chief temptations always came to
him through his good qualities. If he had been a
little duller, or a little uglier, or a little stupider, if he
had even made fewer friends, he might have walked
safely all his life. As it was, instead of listening only to
the Voice of G»od,he allowed himself to listen to one
of the most dangerous suggestions of the Tempter.
Nayler began' to think that he might imitate Jesus
Christ not only in inner ways, not only by trying to

309

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

be meek and loving and ^gentle and self-sacrificing,
as He was to all the people around Him. That is the
way we may all try to be like Him. Nayler also tried
to imitate Him in outer ways. He found a portrait
of the Saviour and noticed how He was supposed to
have worn His hair and beard ; and then he arranged
his own hair and beard in the same way. He even
attempted to work miracles like those in th^ Gospel
story. He tried to fast as Christ had done, ‘He ate
no bread but one little bit for a whol(? month, and
there was about a fortnight ... he took no manner of
food, but some days a pint of white wine, and some
days a gill mingled with water.’ This was when he was
imprisoned in Exeter Gaol with many other Quakers.
One woman among them fainted and became uncon-
scious, and she believed she had been brought back
to life by Nayler’s laying his hand on her head and
saying, ‘Dorcas, arise.’

Some of his friends and the other women in the
prison were foolish and silly. Instead of helping Nayler
to serve God in lowliness and humility, they flattered
his vanity, and encouraged him to become yet more
vain and presumptuous. They even knelt before him
in the prison, bowing and singing, ‘Holy, holy, holy.’
Some one wrote him a wicked letter saying, ‘Thy
name shall be no more James Nayler, but Jesus’!

Nayler confessed afterwards that ‘a fear struck him’
when he received that letter. He put it in his pocket,
meaning that no one should see it. But though Nayler
did not himself encourage his friends in their wicked
folly, still he did not check them as he should have
done. He thought that he was meant to be a ‘sign
of Christ’ for the world. He w,as weak in health at
310

THE SADDEST STORY OF ALL

the time, and had suffered much from imprisonment
and long fasting; so it can be said in excuse that his
mind may Have been clouded, and that perhaps he
did not altogether understand what was being done.

The real sadness of this story is that we cannot
excuse him altogether. Some of the blame for the
silly and foolish and wicked things that were done
around hi]jji does, and must, belong to him too. He
ought to hctve known and to h^ve forbidden it all
from the beginning. George Fox and the other steady
Friends of course did not approve of these wild doings
of JamesNayler and bis friends. George Fox came to
see James Nayler in prison at Exeter, and reproved
him for his errors. James Nayler was proud and
would not listen to rebukes, though he offered to kiss
George Fox at parting. But Fox, wh^ was ‘stiff as a
tree and pure as a bell,’ would not kiss any man, how-
ever much he loved him, who persisted in such wrong
notions. The two friends parted very sorrowfully,
and with a sad heart Fox returned to the inn on
Exeter Bridge. Not all the ‘ Seven Stars ’ on its
signbo^td co\ ^d shine through this cloud.

After this, things grew worse. Nayler persisted
m his idea that he was meant, in his own life, and
in his own body, to imitate Jesus Christ outwardly,
and the women persisted in their wild acting round
him. When Nayler and his admirers came to Bristol,
in October 1656, they arranged a sort of play scene,
to make it like the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.
One man, bareheaded, led Nayler’s horse, and the
women spread scarves and handkerchiefs in the
way before him, a 5 they had no palms. They even
sliouted ‘Hosanna !’^nd other songs and hymns that

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

they had no business to sing except in the worship
of God.

They meant it to be all very brilliant and triumph-
ant. But it was really a miserable sort of affair, for
the rain came down heavily, and the roads were muddy
and duty, which made the whole company wet and
draggled. Still it was not the rain that mattered, —
what mattered most was that none of thei}a can have
had the sunshine ©f peace in their hearts, for they
must have known that they were doing wrong.

Anyhow the magistrates of the city of Bristol had
no manner of doubt about that. As soon as the
foolish, dishevelled, excited company reached the city
they were all clapped into gaol, which was perhaps the
best place to sober their excited spirits. The officers
of the law were thoroughly well pleased. They had
said from the first that George Fox was a most danger-
ous man, and that the Quakers were a misguided
people to follow him. Now the folly and wicked-
ness of Nayler and his company gave them just the
excuse they were wanting to prove that they had been
right all along.

James Nayler was taken to London, tried, found
guilty, and sentenced to savage punishments. He was
examined at length by a Committee of Parliament.
Just before his sentence was pronounced he said that
he ‘ did not know his offence,* which looks as if his
mind really had been clouded over when some of the
things he was accused of were done. But this was not
allowed to be any excuse. ‘You shg.ll know your
offence by your punishment’ was the only answer he
received. The members of Oliver Cromwell’s second
Parliament who dealt with Nqyler’s case were, not
312

THE SADDEST STORY OF ALL

likely to be lenient to any ipan, who, like Nayler, had
donewrong andallowed himself to be led astray. His
Common wealth judges showed him no mercy indeed.
When Nayler heard his terrible sentence, he listened
calmly, and said, ‘God has given me a body: God
will, I hope, give me a 'spirit to endure it. I pray
God He may not lay it to your charge.’ This shows
that he h§d learned really to share his Master’s Spirit,
which is the only true wiy of imitating Him.

The punishments were cruel and vindictive. They
lasted through many weeks. HaT way through, many
‘persons of ’ ote’ signed a petition to ask that he
might be allowed to miss the rest of the penalties,
owing to his enfeebled condition. In spite of this,
the whole barbarous sentence was carried out. James
Nayler bore it unflinchingly. I am only going to tell
you one or two of the cruel tnings that were done to
him — and those not the worst. He was sentenced
to have the letter ‘B’ burned on his forehead with a
hot iron. ‘B’ stands for ‘Blasphemer,’ and it was to
show everybody who saw him, wherever he came, that
he ha(fl)een iound guilty of saying wicked things about
God. The worst part of this punishment must have
been knowing in bis heart that the accusation was,
more or less, true.

There he stood before the Old Exchange in
London, on a bitter Decemberday, in the presence of
thousands of spectators. He bore not only the brand-
ing with a red-hot iron on the forehead until smoke
arose from^thp burning flesh, but also other worse
tortures with ‘a wonderful patience.’ The crowd, who
always assembled on such occasions, were touched by
his demeanour. Instead of jeering and mocking, as

313

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

they were accustomed tQ do to criminals, all these
thousands of people lifted their hats in token of re-
spect, and remained standing bareheaded as they
watched him in his agony. It is said that ‘he
shrinked a little when the iron came upon his fore-
head,’ yet on being unbound he embraced his exe-
cutioner. One faithful friend, Robert Rich, who had
done his utmost to save Naylerfrom this terrible pun-
ishment, stood with«him on the pillory and held his
hand all through the burning, and afterwards licked
the wounds with his tongue to allay the pain. ‘I am
the dog that licked Lazarus’ sores,’ Robert Rich used
to say, alluding to that terrible day. Long years after,
when he was an old man with a long white beard, he
used to walk up and down in Meeting in a long vel-
vet gown, still repeating the story of his friend’s suffer-
ings and of his patience.

After this punishment Nayler was sent down to
Bristol to undergo the rest of his sentence there. He
was made to enter the city again in deepest humili-
ation, no longer with excited followers shouting ‘Ho-
sanna!’ before him, but seated on a horse facing to the
taily with the big ‘B’ burned on his forehead for all
men to see — and then he was publicly whipped.

Yet in spite of all the pain and shame hemust have
been happier in one way during that sorrowful return
to Bristol than at his former entrance to the- city, for
he must have had more true peace in his heart.

Now, at last, comes the happy end of this sad story.
There is no need to sit over the fire in the darkness
any longer. We can dry our eyes and light the lamps
— for it is not sorrowful really. James Nayler’s mis-

314

THE SADDEST STORY OF ALL

takes and si fferings had not been wasted. They had
made him iiiore really like his Master, and his worst
troubles were now ever.

He still lay in prison for two years more, but he
was allowed ink and paper, and he wrote many beauti-
ful letters acknowledging that he had done 4irrong,
confessing his sin, and praising God even for the suffer-
ings whicl^had shown him his error. He says in one
place, ‘the provocation of that tin^e of temptation was
exceeding great against the pure love of God; yet He
left me not; for after I had given myself under that
power, and darkness was above, my adversary so pre-
vailed, that all things were turned and so perverted
against my right seeing, hearing, or understanding;
only a secret hope and faith I had in my God whom
I had served, tnat He would bring me through it, and
to the end of it, and that I should again see the day
of my redemption from under it all; and this quieted
my roul in my greatest tribulation.’

And again, ‘ Dear brethren — My heart is broken
this day for the offence that I have occasioned to
God’s tfuth s- .d people, . . .

‘ And concerning you, the tender plants of my
Father, who have suffered through me, or with me,
in what the Lord hath suffered to be done with me,
in this time of great trial and temptation; the Al-
mighty God ot love, Who hath numbered every sigh,
and put Qvery tear in His bottle, reward it a thousand-
fold into your bosoms, in the day of your need, when
you shall come to be tried and tempted; and in the
meantime fblfil your joy with His love, which you seek
after. The Lqrd knows, it was never in my heart to
cause you to mourn^ whose suffering is my greatest

315

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

sorrow that ever yet came upon me, for you are inno-
cent herein.’ After this, at last he was set free. The
first thing he did was to try to return home to his wife
and children. It is said that ‘ he was a man of great
self-denial, and very jealous of himself ever after his
fall anil recovery. At last, departing from the city of
London, about the latter end of October 1660, to-
wards the north, intending to go home to l\js wife and
children at Wakefield in Yorkshire, he was seen by a
Friend of Hertford (sitting by the wayside in a very
awful, weighty frame of mind), who invited him to his
house, but he refused, signifying his mind to pass for-
ward, and so went on foot as far as Huntingdon, and
was observed by a Friend as he passed through the
town, in such an awful frame, as if he had been re-
deemed from the earth, and a stranger on it, seeking
a better country and inheritance. But going some
miles beyond Huntingdon, he was taken ill (being as
’tis said) robbed by the way, and left bound : whether
he received any personal injury is not certainly known,
but being found in a field by a countryman toward
evening, was had, orwenttoaFriend’s house at Holm,
not far from King’s Ripton, where Thomas Parnell, a
doctor of physic, dwelt, who came to visit him; and
being asked, if any Friends at London should be sent
for to come and see him ; he said, “ N ay, ” expressing his
care and love to them. Being shifted, he said, You
have refreshed my body, the Lord refresh your souls ” ;
and not long after departed this life in peace with the
Lord, about the ninth month, 1660, and the forty-
fourth year of his age, and was buried in Thomas
Parnell's burying- ground at King's Ripton afore-
said.'

316

THE SADDEST STORY OF ALL

‘I don’t call that a happ^ ending. I call it a very
sad ending indeed! What could be worse? To
sit all alone by the roadside, and then perhaps to
be robbed and bound, or if not that, at any rate to
be taken ill and carried to a stranger’s house to die.
That is only a scriowful ending to a most sorrowful
life.’

Is this^what anyone is thinking?

Ah, but listen ! That is not th^ real end. It is said
that ‘about two hours before his death he spoke in
the presence of several witnesses ’ these words:

‘There is a spiril which I feel, that delights to do
no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to en-
dure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end :
its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and
to weary out all exaltation and cruehy, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself It sees to the end of
all temptations : as it bears no evil in itself, so it con-
ceives none in thoughts to any other: if it be betrayed
it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies
and forgiveness of God : its crown is meekness, its
life is everlasting love unfeigned, and takes its king-
dom with entreaty, and not with contention, and keeps
it by lowliness of mind : in God alone it can rejoice,
though none else regard it, or can own its life: it is
conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any
to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression :
it can never rejoice but through sufferings; for with
the world’s joy it is murdered: I found it alone, being
forsaken ; I have fellowship therein with them who
lived in dens, and desolate places in the earth, who
through death obtained this resurrection and eternal
holy, life.’

317

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Thatis why this storyjhas a happy ending. A made-
up story might have left James Nayler at home with
his wife and children. But, after all he had suffered,
he may have been too tired to bear much joy on earth.
Besides, how could he have borne for those dear ones
to seethe condemning ‘B’ burned on his forehead?
and the other scars and signs of his terrible punish-
ments, how could they have borne to see/.hem?

Was it not bettor that the end came as it did by the
roadside near Huntingdon?

Only remember always, that what we call the end
is itself only the beginning.

Think how thankful James Nayler must have been
to lay down the tired, scarred body in which he had
sinned and suffered, while his spirit, strengthened,
purified, and cleansed by all he bad endured, was set
free to serve in the larger, fuller life beyond. James
Nayler’s difficult school-days were over at last on this
little earth, where we are set to learn our lessons.
Like the other prodigal son he had gone to receive
his own welcome from the Father’s heart in the
Father’s Home.

Why have I told you this story — ‘the saddest story
of air? A parable will explain it best. Imagine that
ever since the beginning of Time there has been a
great big looking-glass with the sun shining down upon
it. Then imagine that that looking-glass has been
broken up into innumerable fragments, and that one
bit is given to each human soul, when it is born on
earth, to keep and to hold at the right angle, so that
it can still reflect the sun's beams. Thatis something
like the truth that George Fox discovered for himself

318

THE SADDEST STORY OF ALL

and preached all over England. Hecalled it thedoor
trine of ‘The Inner Light.’ To all the hungering,
thirsting, sinful, ignorant men and women in Eng-
land he gave the same message: ‘There is that of
God within you, that can reflect Him. You can
hear His Voice speaking in your hearts' j oi^ to con-
tinue the parable, Hf you hold your own little bit of
looking-^lass in the sunlight will, it must, reflect
the Sun.' *

James Nayler listened to this message, accepted
it, and rejoiced in it. He did truly turn to the Light.
BuLhv:. forgot me thing that must never be forgotten
He looked too much at his own tiny bit of looking-
glass and too little at the Sun. In this way the mirror
of his soul grew soiled and stained and dim. It could
no longer reflect the lught faithfully. Then, it had to
be cleansed by suffering. But ail this time, and always,
the Sun of God’s unchanging love was steadily shin-
ing, waiting for him to turn to it again. Let us too
look up towards that Sun of Love. Let us open our
hearts wide to receive its light. Then we shall find
that vfb have not only a mirror in our hearts but also
someth ing alive and growing ; what George Fox would
call the ‘Seed.’ Sometimes he calls it the ‘Seed,' and
sometimes the ‘Light,’ because it is too wonderful
for any picture or parable to express it wholly. But
we each have ‘that of God within’ that can reflect
and respond to Him, if we will only let it. Let us try
then to open our hearts wide, wide, to receive, and
not to think of ourselves. If we do this, sooner or
later we sliall learn to live and grow in the sunshine
of God’s love‘, as easily and naturally as the daisies
dOj^ when they spre^td their white and golden hearts

• 319

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

wide open in the earthly sunshine on a summer^s
day.

James Nayler did learn that lesson at last, and
therefore even this, ‘the saddest story of alV really
and trii-y has a happy end.

XXI. PALE WIND
FLOWERS' OR THE
LITTLE PRISON
MAID

‘ Let not any thing straiten you when
God moves,^ — w, dewsbury.
Epistle from York Tower ^ 1660 .

All friends and brethren every •
where^ that a 7 ‘e imprisoned for the
' Truths give yourselves up in it^ and
it will make you free^ and the power
of the Lord will carry you over all
the persecutors. Be faithful in the
life and power of the Lord God and
be valiant for the Truth on the ea, t/i;
and look not at your sufferings y but
at the po 7 ver of God; a?id that will
bring some good out of all your stiff er-
ings; and your imprisotimetits will
reach to the prisoned that the per se-
at tor prisons ift himself . So be
faithfulin that ivhich ovetxomesand
gives victory I — g. fox.

‘ Bread and Wine were the Supper
of the Lord in the dispensation of
TinUy . . , afigureof ILis deathyivhich
were fulfilled when He had suffered
and rose agaiuyand nora He is kno7un
to stand at the door and knocky “ If
any man hear my Voice afid open the
d oor, l 7 vill come m a nd sup 70/th h itn
andheioithmep saiih Christ. At id
we beingmany are one Bread and one
Body and know the Wine renewed i n
our Fathers Kingdom. Christ the
Substance we now witness; Shado7os
and Figures done a 7 vay; he that can
receive ity let him/ — w. dewsburw

XXI. PALE WIND

flowers: or the

LITTLE PRISON
MAID I

D ear grandfather will be wearying for me' !
^We must not linger/ There was a wistful
ring ill the child’s voices she spoke. Little
Mary Samm Rooked longingly towards a clump of
wood anemones dancing in the sunshine, as she fol-
lowed her au Joan Dewsbury, through a coppice
of beech-trees on the outskirlsof the city of Warwick.
It was a bright windy day ot* early spring in the year
1680. Mary was twelve years old, but so small and
slight that she looked and seemed much younger.
And now she wanted badly to gather some wood ane-
mones. But would Aunt Joan approve? Would it be
.-selfish to leave ‘ dear grandfather ’ longer alone ?

Happily the older woman, who preceded little
Mary on the narrow woodland pathway, possessed
a kind ^eart underneath her severe, grey, Quaker
bodice and stiT manner. She caught the wistful tone
111 the little girl’s voice, and, turning round,^oticed
the w66d anemones. Indeed, the wood anemones in-
sisted on being noticed. Joan Dewsbury walked on
a few steps further in silence ; then, setting the heavy
basket down on the trunk of a felled tree, ‘No, Mary,’
she said, ‘ in truth we must not linger; but we may
rest a few m^on^ents. Also thou knowest thy grand-
father’s love of a posy in his prison. If I see aright,
there are some* pale windflowers blowing yonder, be-
side that old tree, though it is full early for them still.

323

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Here, give me thy basket, ^nd hie thee to gat her them.
I will sit down and wait for thy return ; and, if we hasten
our steps hereafter, we shall not be much delayed.'

Little Mary Samm glanced up with a joyful smile.
She had espied the few, first, faint windflowers as soon
as she entered the wood ; but, without her aunt’s per-
mission, it would never have entered her head to sug-
gest that she might gather them. For Mary^as a care-
fully trained (not to F.ay primly brought up) little maid-
en of the seventeenth century, when children followed
their elders’ injunctions in all things, without daring
to dwell on their own wishes. If Joan Dewsbury had
been an artist she would have enjoyed watching the,
child’s slim little upright figure stepping daintily over
the rustling brown beech leaves, between the rounded
trunks of the grey trees. Theair was full of the promise
of early spring. A cold blue sky showed through the
lattice work of twigs and branches; but, as yet, no
fluttering leaf had crept out of its sheath to soften,
with a hint of tender green, the virginal stiffness and
straightness of the stems. Grey among the grey tree-
trunks little Mary flitted about, gathering her precious
windflowers. She was clad in the demure Puritan
dress worn by young and old alike in the early days
of the Society of Friends. A frock of grey duffel hung
in straight lines around her slight figure ; a cape of the
same material was drawn closely round her shoulders,
while a grey bonnet framed the pensive face. A strange
unchildlike face it was, small and pinched, with a high,
narrow forehead and sharply pointed chin. There were
no childish roses in the pale cheeks. Avery faint flush
of pink, caused by fresh air and unwonted exercise,
could not disguise the curious yellow tinge of the skin,

324

PALE WINDFLOWERS

like old parchment chat h^s been kept too long from
the light of day. Only the tips of a few locks of light
brown hair, cut very short and straight round the ears,
were visible under the close, tightly-fitting bonnet
‘An ugly little girl, in perfectly hideous clothes,*
modern children might have said if they ftad seen
MarySamm for the first time, looking down at her wind-
flowers, though even then there was a hint of beauty
in the long, curved, black eyelashes that layquietlyon
the pal j checks, and a very sweet expression hovered
round the corners of the firm, delicate, little mouth.
But no one ho could have seen little Mary run-
ning back to her aunt with her precious flowers in her
hand would have called her ‘ ugly * or even ‘ plain ’
any longer. The radiant light in her eyes transfigured
the small, pinched face of the demure little being in its
old-fashioned garments. Even critical modern chil-
dren would have forgotten every thing else, and would
have exclaimed, ‘She has the most beautiful eyes!*
What colour were her eyes? They were not blue,
or black, or grey, or brown, or hazel, or green, or yellow.
Perh^s they were in truth more yellow than anything
else. They were full not only of sparkling lights but
also of deep velvety shadows that made it difficult to
tell their exact colour. Who can say the colour of a
mountainstret^m thai runs over a pebbled bed? Every
stone can be seen through the clear, iransparent water,
but there are my sterious, shadowy darknesses in it also,
reflected from the overhanging banks. Little Mary
Samm’seyes ^ereboth clear and mysterious as such a
mountain stream; while her voice, — but hush I she is
speaking again, her rather shrill, high tones breaking
the,crisp silence of the March afternoon.

325

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

‘Jiere is the posy, Aunt; will not dear grandfather
love^ifcis pale windflowers, come like stars to visit
him in his prison? Only these flower stars will not
I^s away quickly out of sight as do the real stars we
watch together through the bars every evening/
JoanOewsbury took the bunch of anemones from
her niece’s cold fingers, laid it down carefully in Mary’s
rush basket and covered it with a corner of the cloth.
Had she been a 'nowadays aunt’ she might have
thought that Mary was not unlike a windflower herself.
The girl’s small white face was flushed faintly, like the
ethereal white sepals; there was a delicate, fragile frag-
ranee about her as if a breath might blow her away, yet
there was an unconquerable air of determination also
in her every movement and gesture. But Joan Dews-
bury was not a ‘nowadays aunt’; shewasa ‘thenadays
aunt,’ and that was an entirely different kind. She never
thought of comparinga little girl, who had come to take
care of her grandfather in his prison, with the white,
starry flowers that came out in the wood so early, hold-
ing on tight to the roots of the old tree, and blooming
gallantly through all the gales of spring. Joan* Dews-
bury’s thoughts were full of different and, to her, far
more important matters than her niece’s appearance.
She rose, and, after handing Mary her small rush
basket and settling her own larger 'one comfortably on
her arm, the two started off once more with quicken-
ed steps through the wood. Neither the older woman
nor the girl was much of a talker, and the winding
woodland pathways were too narrow for two people
to walk abreast. But when they came out oh the bro^d
grassy way that wandered across the meadows 4y
the side of the smooth Avon tojvards the city \yglls,
326

PALE WINDFLOWERS

they did seem to havea few things to say to oneanother.
They spoke of the farm they had visited, of the milk,
eggs, and cheese they carried in their baskets. But
most often they mentioned ‘the prison.* Little Mary
still seemed to be ir great hurry to get back to be
with ‘dear grandfathei,’ while her coinpAion was
apparently anxious to detain her long enough to learn
something more of hci life in the gaol.

‘I could envy thee, Aiary. wereitnot a sin,* she said
once. ‘Thqu art a real comfort to my dear father.
Since my mother died, gladly would I have been his
companion, and hav^e sought to ease his captivity,
but the Governor of the gaol would not allow it.*

^Ay, I know,’ replied IMary, in hercleai, high-pitch-
ed voice. ‘My mother told me that day at my home
in Bedfordshire, that no one but a child like me could
be allowed to serve him, and to live in the prison as
his little maid.*

‘Didst thou want to come, Mary?* her aunt en-
quired.

Mary’s face clouded for a moment. Then she
IcokeS full at her aunt. The candid eyes that had
nothing to hide, reflected shadows as well as light at
that moment. • «

‘No, Aunt,’ she said, firmly and clearly, ‘at the
first I did not want to come. There was my home,
thou seest; I love Hutton Conquest, and my mother,
and the maids, my sisters. Also I had many friends
in our village with whom I was wont to have rare frolics
and games. JVhen first my mother told me of the
Governor’s permission, I did not want to leave the
pleasant Be<lfH:>rdshire meadows that lie around our
deaj- farm, and go tc^live cooped up behind bolts and

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

bars. Besides, I hjid hear^ that Warwick Gaol was a
fearsome place. I was affrighted at the thought of be-
ing shut up among the thieves and murdefers. And
— ’ She hesitated.

‘Poor maid,’ said her aunt, ‘still thou didst come
in the erfd?’

‘In the end it was made clear to me that my place
was with dear grandfather,’ said the child injier crisp,
old-fashioned way. / My mother said she could not
force mej for she feared the gaol feyer for me. I
feared it too. And it is worse even than I feared. At
nights I hear the prisoners screaming with it often.
Nearly every day some of them die. They say it is
worse for the young, and I know my grandfather
dreads that I may take it. He looks at me often very
sadly, or he did when I first came. Always then at
nightfall he grew sad. But, latterly, we have been so
comfortable together that I think he hath forgot his
fears. When the evenings darken, and he can no
longer read or write, we sitand watch the stars. Then
if I can persuade him to tell me stories of what he hath
undergone, that doth turn his thoughts, and aftefwards
he will fall asleep, and sleep well the whole night
through.’,

‘Thou art a comfort to him, sure enough,’ her
aunt answered, ‘It is wonderful how much brighter
he hath been since he had thee, though he hath never
smiled since my mother’s death. But thou thyself
must surely grow tired of the prison and its bare stone
walls ? Thou must long to be back at jday with thy
sisters in the Bedfordshire meadows?’

‘That do I no longer,’ little Mary Samm made
answer firmly. ‘I love my sistersr dearly, dearly,’«she

PALE WINDFLOWERS

raised her voice unconsciously as she spoke, and a
chaffinch on a branch overhead filled in the pause
with an answering chirp, ‘I Icvt my mother too.
bidst thou really say thou wert expecting her to visit
thee right soon? My dear, dear mother! But I love
my dear grandfather best of all, for he hath nobody
but me to care for him. At least, of course, he hath
thee, Aunt Joan/ she added hastily, noticing a slight
shade pass^ver her aunt’s face- ^‘And what should
we do witliout thee to bake bread for us, and go
to the farm to fetch him fresh eggs, and butter, and
cheese, and s’ eet, ne^ * milk? He would soon starve
on the filthy prison fare. See, I have the milk bottle
safe hidden under my flowers.’

‘Aye, thou wast ever a careful maid,’ answered her
aunt: ‘but, tell me, hath theGovernor indeed grown
gentler of late, and hath he given my father more
liberty, and a better room?’

'That he hath indeed. He patted my head this
very morn, and said I might have permission to come
out and walk with thee for the first time,’ Mary
answered. ‘ I f e saith, too, that the gaol is no place for
a child like me, and that thou shalt come and see us
in a se’nnight from now; then hc";ply thou wilt bring
my mother with thee! The room my grandfather
hath now is small m truth, but he can lie down at
length, and I have a little cupboard within the wall
where I .can also lie and hear if be needs me. Doth
he but stir or call “Mary” at nights, ever so gently, in
a moment I am by his side.’

‘And canst thou ease him?’ her aunt enquired.

‘That I car,’ answered Mary proudly. ‘Often I
can ^ase him, or warm his poor cold hands, or soothe

,S29

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

him till he sleeps again^ for he grows weaker after
this long imprisonment.’

‘ Small wonder,’ replied her aunt. ‘If thou hadst
seen the dungeon where they set him first — foul, be-
neath the floor, with no window, only a grating over-
head ti* give him air. There were a dozen or more
felons and murderers packed in it too, along with him,
so that he had not enough room even to lie down. But
there — it is not fit^for a child like thee fo know the
half of all he hath undergone in the cause of Truth.’

‘ Dear, dear grandfather,’ said Mary wistfully,
‘yet he never complains. He says always that he
“ doth esteem the locks and bolts as jewels,” since
he doth endure them for his Master’s sake.’

‘Ay, and w'hat was his crime for which he suffered
at first in that foul place? Nothing but his giving of
thanks one night after supper at an inn. His accusers
must needs affirm this to be “preaching at a convent-
icle.” Hist! we had better be silent now we have reach-
ed the town. I must leave thee at the gate of the gaol,
and go on my way, while thou goest thine. Be sure
and say to my dear father that I and thy moPher will
visit him as soon as ever the Governor shall permit.’

A few minutes later they stopped; Joan Dewsbury
took the basket from her arm and gave it to her niece.
‘Farewell, dear child,’ she said cheerily, as the porter
opened the tall portal of the prison ; but her eyes
grew dim as she watched the small figure disappear
behind the heavy bolts and bars.

‘She is a good maid, and a brave one,’ she said to
herself as she passed down the street between the
timbered houses to her home. ‘ Yet she is not as
other children are. For all the^comfort she is tp my

330

PALE WINDFLOWERS

dear father, I would f?in think of her safe once more
at home with her sisters. :^ight glad I am that her
mother hath sent me word by a sure hand to say she
Cometh speedily to see of her condition for herself.
The Governor is right, the gaol is no place for a child,
nor IS it the life for her either. She liveth toe ifuch in
her own thoughts. This morn on our walk to the farm
when I asked her wherefore she seemed sorrowful,
she replied^hat she was “troubled in her conscience}
that she thought she would not live long and wanted
satisfactionfromtheLord as to whit her her soul would
go if she were to die.’’ Yet she sprang after those
flowers as gaily as her sisters, and she saith always
that she is well, if only she may keep as she is until
her mother shall come.’

Shaking her head, and full of anxious thoughts, the
kind woman pursued her homeward way. Over the
cobble-stones and between the timbered houses
with their steep gables and nigh-thatched roofs, she
passed through the city until she came to her own
small dwelling, William Dewsbury’s home, where his
daughttr livt d alone, and awaited his return.

II

Have you ever seen arayof golden sunshine steal
in through the thick* blinds, heavy shutters and close
curtains that try to shut it out? People may pull
down the blinds and shut the shutters and draw the
curtains, and do their very best to keep the sunshine
away. Yet, sooner or later, a ray always manages
to get dn sofnefiow. It dances through a chink here
or a hole there, or steals along the floor, till at last it
arrives, a radiant mq^senger, in the darkened room

331

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

to say that a whole world of light is waiting outside.

In spite of her sombre garments, Mary Samm was
like such a ray of sunshine as she stole into Warwick
prison. No doors, bolts or bars could keep her out; and
thegaoler seemed to knowit,asheprecededher down
the danp, dark, stone passages : the walls and floor
oozing moisture, and the ceiling blackened by the
smoke of many candles. The prisons of England were
all foul, ill-smelling, fever-haunted places St that time;
and hardly any of them was worse than Warwick gaol.

William Dewsbury had earned the esteem of his
keepers during his successive imprisonments which
lasted altogether for nearly nineteen years. He was
privileged now to lie away from the other criminals,
who were herded together in the main building. He
had been given a small apartment that looked towards
the river on the far side of a courtyard, called the ser-
geants’ ward. There was even a pump in the centre
of this courtyard from whence his granddaughter
might fetch him water daily, and the old man and
the child were now privileged to take exercise to-
gether in the fresh air ; — a great solace in the weary
monotony of prison life. The gaoler unlocked the
door of this seigeginls’ ward, and then, pnUmg into
Mary’s tand the key of her grandfather’s apartment,
he retraced his steps to the outer gate. Mary sped
across the cobble-stones of the courtyard with joyful
haste, unlocked the door, set down her baskets care-
fully, the big one first, the little one after it, and then,
‘Grandfather, dear Grandfather, ’she exclaimed, ‘tell
me, am I late? Hast thou missed thy 1 ittle prison maid?’

The white-haired man, who was writing at a rough
oak table, lifted his head as st^e entered. His face

332

PALE WINDFLOWERS

was worn and haggard; hij eyes were sunken, but
the smile that overspread his countenance, as he saw
who had entered, was as bright as little Mary^s own.
Laying down his pen and pushing the papers from
him, he held out his arms, and in another minute his
granddaughtei was clasped in his embrace.#

^ It would be hard to say which of the two was the
happier as she placed the precious windflowers in his
thin, blue- veined hand and told hjm all she had seen
and d<^'ne. Jpan’s messages were given; and then,
‘ But what hast thou been aoing, dear Grandfather?’
Mary asked in her Him. ‘Hast thou been writing
yet another Epistle to Friends to encourage them to
stand firm? I see thy name very dear and bold at
the foot: ‘‘William Dewsbury.” I love thy name,
Grandfather ! It reminds me of oar summer flowers
and berries at home in Bedfordshire and of the heavy
dews that fall on them. Thy name is as good as a
garden. Grandfather, in itselL

‘It is thou who shouldst be in a garden thyself,
my little Mary,’ William Dewsbury answered sorrow-
fully. ^Itissad tobringthee back within thesegloomy
walls, a maid like thee.’

‘Nay, Grandfather, it is not sadl Thou promised
me that thou wouldst never say that again ! My work
was shewn me plaihly; that I was to come and care
for thee, and fetch thee thy provisions. It is full early
yet for supper, although the light is fading; canst
thou not tell me a little tale while I sit on thy knee?
Afterwards w^ will eat our meal, and then thou wilt
tell me more stories yet, more and more, to shorten
the dark hours till the stars are shining brightly and
it is. time to go to i^st.’

333

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

/Thou hast heard mo^t of my tales so often, dear
Granddaughter, as we sit here these dark evenings,
that thou dost almost know them better than I my-
self,’ the old man replied.

‘ Yea, truly, I know them well,’ answered Mary.

‘ Yet I am never weary of hearing of thy own life long
ago. Tell me once more how thou wast brought off
from being a soldier, and established in the path of
peace.’ ,

‘Thou must have that tale well nigh by heart al-
ready, dear lamb,’ the old man answered. ‘ Many a
time I have told thee of my early days among the
flocks, how I was a shepherd lad until I came to
thine own age of twelve years. Thereafter, when I
was thirteen years old, I was bound an apprentice to
a clothmaker in a town called Holdbeck, near Leeds.
He was a godly man and strict, but sharp of tongue.
I might have continued in that town to this day. But
when I was fully come to man’s estate the Civil War
between King and Parliament broke out all over the
land. Loath was I to take up arms, having been ever
of a peaceable disposition, but when wise men,Vhom
I revered, called upon me to fight for the civil and
religious freedom ofcmy native land, it seemed to me,
in my dark ignorance of soul, that no other course
remained honourably open to mfe. I feared if I did
not join the Army of the Parliament that had sworn
to curb the tyranny of Charles Stuart, then upon my
head would rest the curse of Meroz, “ who went not
to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” Thus I
became a soldier, thinking that by so doing I was
fighting for the Gospel — and forgetting that my Mas-
ter was One who was called the Prince of Peace.*
334

PALE WINDFLOWERS

‘Small peace, in truth, did I find in the ranks pf
the army of the Parliament — or indeed in any other
place, until in the fulness of time it was made clear
to L^e that I was but seeking the living amongst the
dead, and looking without for that which was only to
be found within.

‘Then my mind was turned within, by the power
of the Lord, to wait on His counsel, the Light in my
own consciftxe, to hear what the Lord would say:
and the word of the Lord came unto me, and said,
“Put up thy sword into thy scabbard. . . . K nowest
thou not that if 1 need I rould nave twelve legions of
Angels from my Father”: which Word enlightened my
heart, and discovered the mystery ofiniquity, and that
the Kingdom of Christ was within, and was spiritual,
and my weapons against them must be spiritual, the
Power of God.

‘It was on this wise that I came to join the Army
of the Lamb, and of His peaceful servants who follow
Him whithersoever He goeth,*

‘But, Grandfather, explain to me,howcouldstthou
leave the Parliumentary army thou wert pledged to
serve

‘A hard struggle I had truly to gpt free. Yet I did
leave it, for I was yet more deeply pledged to Him
Who had said, “My kingdom is not of this world: if
my kingdom were of this world, then would my serv-
ants fight.” At length my way was made more plain
before me. I left the army and resumed my weaving.
Thus I passed through deep baptizings of th^ Holy
Ghost and of fire, — baptisms too deep for achild like
thee to understand how they affected my soul’

Mgiry nodded her bead gently and said to herself,

335

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAlNTS

‘Perhaps I can understand already, better than my
grandfather thinks. Have I not twice already in my
young years been brought nigh to death? Even now
death seemeth to me often not far away.'

‘Wouldst thou then fear to die, Grandfather?' she
added^loud.

‘No more than a bird would fear to leave its cage
and fly, were once the door but open,' the old man
answered. ‘But the door is still securelyVastened for
me, it seems; and since I had thee, my little bird, to
share my captivity I am no longer anxious to leave
my cage. I was younger by four years than thou art
now, my child, when 1 lost my fear of the grave. It
was on this wise. I was but a little lad of eight years
old, mourning and weeping for the loss of my dear
father, who had been taken from us. As the tears
streamed down my cheeks, methought I heard a Voice
saying: “Weep for thyself; thy father is well.” Never
since that day, Mary child, have I doubted for one
moment that for those who go hence in peace, it is
well indeed.’

‘Dear Grandfather, there is a sad sound in thy
voice,' said little Mary. ‘It is too dark by this time to
see thy face, but I cannot let thee be sad. How shall
I cheer thee? Ah ! I know ! how could I have forgot-
ten ? My aunt charged me to say she hath news by a
sure hand that my dear mother may be coming hither
to visit thee and me before many days are .over.'

‘My daughter Mary is ever welcome,’ said the old
man d%eamily, ‘and in the darkness thy voice is so
like to hers, I could almost deem she herself was sit-
ting by my side. Already the young moon has dis-
appeared behind the battlemejits of the castle.^ Yet

336

PALE WINDFLOWERS

I need not her silver light tell me that thy hair is
softer and straighter than thy mother’s, and without
the golden lights and twining curls that hers had
when she was thy age.’

'‘The moon truly has left us, Grandfather,’ Mary
interrupted, springing frcm his knee. ‘Yifct what
matters the darkness while we are close together?

1 can still see to get thy supper ^eady for thee. Thou
must eat h^st, and then e wall t^lk further, until it
is time t- > go to rest.’

Deftly the little prison maid moved about the bare
cell, drawing h r grandfather’s chair to the rough oak
table. On this she arranged the loaf of bread and
bottle of milk from her basket, setting them and the
earthenware mugs and platters out on the white
cloth, to look as home-like as possible. The ane-
mones in the centre still glimmered faintly as if
shining by their own light. The simple meal was
a very happy one. When it w^as finished and the
remains had been cleared away and carefully re-
placed in the basket for to-morrow’s needs, the stars
were leaking in through the prison bars.

‘ Now, one more story, Grandfather,’ said Mary
rirmly, ‘just one, before we go tocest.’

‘I love to see thy small white face shining up at
me through the glcTom,’ the old man answered. ‘I
will tell thee of my first meeting with George Fox.
Hast thou ever heard that story?'

The little prison maid was far too wary to reply
directly.

‘Tell it fo me now, Grandfather,' she replied evas-
ively,’ and theh, to turn the old man’s thoughts in
the right direction, ‘tiliou hadst already left the army

z 337

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

by that time?’ she hazarded.

‘Ay, that I had,’ answered Dewsbury. ‘I had left
it for several years, and a measure of Truth I had
found for myself. Greatly I longed to proclaim it
and to share my new-found happiness with others.
But therinward Voice spoke to me clearly and said:
“Keep thee silent for six full years, until the year
1652 shall have come. Then shalt thou find more
hungering and thirsting among the people than at
the present time.” So “I kept silence even from good
words, though it was pain and grief to me.” Thou
knowest, Mary, even while I was yet in the army,
many and deep exercisings had I had in my spirit,
and such were still my portion at times. About this
time, by the providence of God, I chanced to hear
of a young woman living in the city of York, who was
going through a like season of sorrow and anguish
regarding her immortal soul. After due deliberation,
I found it in my heart to pay her a visit. I did this
and went on foot to York. When I came into her
presence, at once we were made aware of each other’s
conditions. No sooner did we begin to converge than
we found ourselves joined together in deep unity of
spirit. Her spiritual exercises answered unto mine
own, as in water face answereth to face. Dost thou
understand, child, of what I am speaking?’

‘I follow not thy language always with entire com-
prehension, dear Grandfather,’ answered Mary with
her usual precise honesty of speech, ‘but it appears
to me thy meaning is clear. 1 think that this young
woman must likely have been my grandmother?’

William Dewsbury smiled. ‘Thou art right,’ he
said, ‘it was to be even so, in the fulness of time;fhat,

338

PALE WINDFLOWERS

however, was long after. Almost at once we became
man and wife. There seemed nc need to settle that
between us. It had been settled for us by Him who
brought us together. W e knew it from the first moment
that we saw each the other^s face. Thy grandmother
had in a measure joined her'-elf unto the Anabaptists,
therefore ’twas at one of their meetings that we were
wed. The power of the Spiritwas an astonishment un-
to them, an^ I have heard it said that never hath’the
Divine Presence been more felt in any assembly than
it was that day. Thy grandmother resembled thee,
my Mary, as tl ou wilt be when thou art a woman
grown — when thou shall be taller and rounder, and
less slim and spare. Her eyes were darker than thine,
and she had the same sott brown hair as thine, but
with thy mother’s golden threads in it, my Ann!
Before she became my wife, she had been blessed
with a plenty of this world’sgoods, but no soonerwere
we wed than her brother unjustly deprived her of her
property. For myself, I cared not. Now that she was
safely mine own, he was welcome to the land that
should tiave been hers by right. Yet for her sake I
strove to get it back, but in vain. Then did the enemy
of souls reproach me for having brought hej, whom
I tenderly loved, into a state of poverty. In humili-
ation and lowliness of mind before the Lord, without
yielding to the tempter, I desired Him to make me
content to be what He would have me to be ; and, in
a moment, I was so filled with the presence of the
Lord, that I was not able to bear the weight of the
glory that w^s upon me. I desired the Lord, if He had
any service for me to do, to withdraw, for I could not
live; then I heard as i^werea Voice say to me, “Thou

339

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

art Mine, all in heaven and earth is Mine, and it is
thine in Me; what I see good I will give unto thee,
and unto thy wife and children/”

‘Poor Grandfather, that was a hard pass for thee,*
murmured Mary, smoothing the old man's coat
[Sleeve*, ‘ But did not a great joy follow close upon thy
trouble?’ she prompted, ‘a great joy on a moonshine
night, not a dark one like this?’

William Dewsbury’s countenance kindled with
fresh life and vigour. ‘Yea, my childj’ he answered,
‘ light did indeed illuminate us on that same moon-
shine night of which thou speakest, when we went,
my Ann and I, to Lieutenant Roper’s house to hear
the Stranger preach. All our lives we had both
been seeking, but now by the Power of the Lord, the
time was come for us to find. We went to hear a
Stranger. But no strangerwas George Fox. Ratherdid
we recognise him, from the first moment of that meet-
ing, as the own brother of our souls. Up and down
the length and breadth of the land I had journeyed,
seeking for deliverance and for truth. Now, in my
own county of Yorkshire, my deliverer wa^' found.
It was not alone the words he spake, though they
were fo^-cible andi^convincing, much more it was the
irresistible Power of the Loid breathing through him
that brought us to our knees. All men could see as
they looked upon his goodly form, not then marred
by cruel imprisonments and sufferings, that he was a
man among ten thousand. But to me he was also a
choseit/vessel of the I.ord; for power spoke through
him, yea, to my very heart. I have told thee, Mary,
of my long searchings after truth, and of those of
my dear wife. There was nocieed to mentioji one

340

PALE WINDFLOWERS

of them to George. With the first words he spake
it was clear to me that he knew them ail, he could
read our necessities like an open book. Well hath
it ueen said of him that “he was a man of God en-
dued with a clear and wonderful depth; a discerner
of otner men’s spirits, and very much a m^ter of
his own.” Our hearts clave unto him at once. We
could scarcely restrain ourselves until the meeting
should be an end, to disclose our inmost souls
unto him Then at last, when all the multitude had
departed, v^e watched Friend George set out on his
homeward way. We folk’' wed him in all haste, ray Ann
and I, until we came up with him in a lonely field.
I'he moon shone full on his face and on our seeking
faces, revealing us to each other. At first he gazed on
us as if we were strangers. For all we had longed ard-
ently to tell him, we found no words. Only a long time
we stood together silently, we three, with the dumb
kine slumbering around us in the aewy meadows; we
three, revealed to one another in the full light. Then
at last we confessed to the Truth before him, and from
him we^eceivcd Truth again. There is no Scripture
to warrant the sprinkling of a few drops of water on
the face of a child and callingthat Baptism ; but there
is a Scripture for being baptized with the Holy Ghost
and with fire. That? true essential Baptism did our
spirits receive in very deed that night from. God’s
own minister of His Everlasting Gospel.

‘Thus, then and there, were we three knit together
in soul; and the Lord’s Power was over all.^

The old*man’s voice died away into silence. His
thoughts were far off in the past. The loneliness of
the p;:ison was forgoMen, little Mary knew that her

341

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

evening’s task was done.^ Very gently she flitted from
his side, arranged his bed for the night, and then
slipped, noiselessly as a shadow, into her little inner
cell, scarcely larger than a cupboard. Here she un-
dressed in the darkness and laid herself down on her
little sraw pallet on the floor. But she had brought
the precious windflowers with her. ‘They are so white,
they will be like company through the dark night
hours,' she said to herself, placing the gfass close to
her bed. Presently, through a tiny slit of window high
up in the prison wall, one sentinel star looked down
into the narrow cell. It peeped in upon a small white
figure straight and slim amid the surrounding black-
ness of the cell, with ‘dear, long, lean, little arms
lying out on the counterpane’; but Mary’s eyes were
wide open, her ears were listening intently for her
grandfather’s softest call.

Gradually the ray of starlight crept up the prison
wall and disappeared; soon other stars one by one
looked in at the narrow window and passed upwards
also on their high steep pathways; gradually the
eyelids closed, and the long dark lashes lay Upon the
white cheeks. Drowsily little Mary thought to her-
self, ‘I fim glad my mother will soon be here, but it
hath been a very happy evening. Truly I am glad I
came to help dear grandfather; and to be his little
prison maid.’

Only one starry white windflower, claaped tight
in her fingers through the long night hours, gradually
droope^l and died.

XXII. AN UNDIS-
TURBED -MEETING

*// was impossible to ignore the
Quaker because he would not be ig-
nored. If you close his meeting-house
he holds it in the street; if you stone
him out of the city in the ei^enm^^he
is there in the morning with Ms
bleeding wounds still upon him. . .
You may break the earthen vessel,
yhut the spirit is mvincible and that
you cannot killd

JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

C-

Interior cqhmess means i7it€rior
and exterior strength^

J. REN DEL HARRIS,

^Be nothing terrified at their threats
of banishment, for they ca7inot ba7i-
ish you from the coasts and sanct-
uary of the Living Godl

MARGARET FOX,

^ Grant us grace to rest fi'07n all
si7ful deeds a?id thoughts, to S7ir-
render ourselves iv holly imfo Thee,
to keep our souls still before Thee
like a still lake; that so the beams
of Thy love may be mirroird there-
in, a7id 771 ay kindle in our hearts
the beams of faith, aiid love, and
prayer. May we, through such
stilhiess a7id hope, find strength
a 7 id gladfiess in Thee O Cod, now,
and for ever7norel

JO A CIIIM E MB DEN, I 5 9 5 .

^ For the soul that is close to god
^ In the folded wings of prayer.
Passion no 77iore ca7i vex,

Infinite peace is therel

EDWIN HATCH.

XXII. AN UNDIS-
TURBED MEETING

Q uiet and lonely nov/ stands the small old
farmhouse of Draw well, on the sunny slope
^cf a hill, unaer the shadow of the great
fells. To this day the old draw-well behind the house,
which gives its name to the homestead, continues to
yield its refreshing draught of pure cold water. ‘It
is generally full, even in times of drought, and never
overflows. ’ To this day, also, the ‘ living water, ’ drawn
in many a ‘mighty Meeting^ held around that well
in the early years of Quakerism, continues to refresh
thirsty souls.

It was to Drawwell Farm that George Fox came
with his hosts Thon as and John Blaykling, on Whit-
sun Wednesday evening in June 1652, at the end of
Sedbergh Fair. From DrawvrcU he accompanied them
to Firbank Chapel, the following Sunday forenoon,
'hhere, high up on the opposite fell, he was moved,
as he sa^s in his Journal, to ‘ sit down upon the rock
on the mountain’ and ‘discourse to over a thousand
people, amongst whom I declared God’s everlasting
Truth and word of life freely and largely, fdt about
the space of three Iy^ucs, whereby many were con-
vinced.’

More than once in after days, George Fox returned
again thankfully to Draww^ell, seeking and finding
rest and refreshmentfor soul and body undents hos-
pitable, low„ stone roof, as he went up and down on

* I'his paragniT«.«b is taken from E. E. Taylor’s description
of Di awwell.

345

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

those endless journeys of his, throughout the length
and breadth of England, whereby he ‘ kept himself
in a perpetual motion, begetting souls unto God.’

Many hallowed memories cling about Drawwell
Farm, — as closely as the silvery mist clings to every
nook and cranny of its walls in damp weather, —
but none more vivid than that of the Undisturbed
Meeting of 1665.

George Fox was not present that day* His open-
air wanderings and his visits to the home under the
great fells were alike at an end for a tifiie, while in the
narrow prison cells of Lancaster and Scarborough he
was bearing witness, after a different fashion, to the
freedom of the Spirit of the Lord. George Fox was
not among the guests at Drawwell. No ‘mighty
Meeting,’ as often at other times, was gathered there
that day. There was only a company of humble men
and women seated on forms and chairs under the black
oak rafters of the big barn that adjoins the house,
since the living-room was not spacious enough to hold
them all with ease, although their numbers were not
much above a score. ,

The Master and Mistress of Drawwell were present
of course. Good Farmer Blaykling, with his ever ready
courtesy and kindness, looked older now than on the
day, thirteen years before, wh,^n he and his father
had brought the young preacher back with them from
the Fair. He himself had known latterly what it was
to suffer ‘ for Truth’s sake,’ as some extra furrows on
his brp'tv had testified plainly since the day when
‘Priest John Burton of Sedbergh beat John Blaykling
and pulled him by the hair off his seat in his high
place.’ Happily that outbreak had passed over, and
346

AN UNDISTURBED MEETING

all seemed quie^ this Sunday morning, as he took his
place in the big barn. His wife sat by his side; around
them were their children (none of them young), the
iu.rm lads and lasses, and seveial families of neighbour-
ing Friends. But it chanced that the youngest pe’-son
present, one of ^hefarm lasses, was well into^er teens.

‘Surely it was the loving-kindness of the Lord’
(motherly Mistress Blaykiing was wont to testify in
after years) ‘that brought the ordeal only upon us,
grown men and women, and not upon any tender
babes.’ The Meeting began, much like any other
Meeting in th'^t peaceful country, where Friends ever
loved to gather under the shadow of the hills and the
yet mightier overshadowing of the Spirit of God.
The Dove of Peace brooded over the company.
Even as the unseen water bubbLd in the dark
depths of the old draw-well close by, so, in the deep
stillness, already some hearts were becoming con-
scious of —

‘ The bubbling of the hidden springs,

That feed the world.’

Soon,«out of the living Silence would have been born
the fresh gift of living speech. . . .

When suddenly, into all this pgace, there came the
clattering of horses’ hoofs along the stony road that
leads to the farm, f(|llowed by loud voices and a pistol
shot, as a body of troopers trotted right up to the
homestead. Finding that deserted and receiving no
answers to their shouts, they proceeded to the barn
itself in search of the assembled Friends. *^0 officer
in charge Vas a young Ensign, Lawrence Hodgson,
a very gay gentleman indeed, a gentleman of the
ResJ:oration, when jiot only courtiers but soldiers

347

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

too, knew well what it was to be courtly.

He came from Dent, ‘with other officers of the
militia and soldiers.^ Now Dent was a place of import-
ance, in those days, and looked down on even Sed-
bergh as a mere village. Wherefore to be sent off to
a small farm in the outskirts of Sedbergh in search of
a nest of Quakers was a paltry job at best for these
fine gentlemen from Dent. Naturally, they set about
it, cursing and swearing with a will, to :.hew what
brave fellows they were. For here were all these
Quakers whom they had been sent to harry, brazen-
ing out their crime in the full light of day. By Act
of Parliament it had been declared, not so long ago
either, that any Quakers who ‘assembled to the
number of five or more persons at any one time, and
in any one place, under pretence of joining in a
religious worship not authorised by law, were, on
conviction, to suffer merely fines or imprisonment
for their first and second offences, but for the third,
they were to be liable to be transported to any of His
Majesty’s plantations beyond seas.’ A serious penalty
this, in those days second only to death itself^ and a
terror to the most hardened of the soldiery; but here
was a handful of humble farmfolk, deliberately daring
such a punishment unafraid.

‘Stiff-necked Quakers — you skall answer for this,’
shouted Ensign Hodgson as he entered ‘cursing and
swearing’ (so says the old account) ‘and threatening
that if Friends would not depart and disperse he
would kifi them and slay and what not.’ ‘You look
like hardened offenders, all of you, an'd P'doubt this
is not a first offence.’ So saying, the Ensign set spurs
to his horse and rode up and down thebarn, overturn-
348

AN UNDISTURBED MEETING

ing forms and cliairs, slasliing at the women Friends
with the flat of his sword, while some of the roughest
of his followers poked the sharp points of their blades
through the coats of the men, ‘just to remind you,
Quaker dogs, of what w'i could do, an’ we chose.’

Amid all this noise an 1 hurly-burly, the^men and
wonicn Friends sat on in stillness as long as possible.
Only when their seats were actually overiurned, they
rose to ttfeir feet and su>od upyght in their places.
They were to be beaten or trampled upon, if
necessary ; but they would not, of their own will, quit
their ground. Strangely enough, the wives did not
rush to their husbands or cling to them; the men
did not seek to protect the women-folk. They all
remained, even the lads and lasses, self-poised as it
were, one company still; resting, as long as they
could, quietly, in the inward citadel of peace. In
spite of all the liubbub, the true spirit of worship was
not disturbed.

At last the soldiers, determined not to be baffled,
came to yet closer quarters and drove their unresist-
ing vfctims, willy nilly, before them from under the
sheltering rafters of the barn. The Friends were
roughly hustled down the steeps hillside ^d driven
hither and thither, but still the meeting was not in-
terrupted, for thel: hearts could not be driven out
from the overshadowing presence of God.

So the great fells looked down upon a strange
scene a few minutes later, — a strange sce«e, yet one
all too common in those days. A cavalcadraf glitter-
ing horsemen with their flowing perukes, ruffles, gay
coats, plumed hats, and all the extravagances of the
costume of even the fighting man of ‘ good King

349

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Charles’s golden days.’ Jn the centre of this gay
throng, a little company of Friends in their plain gar-
ments of homespun and duffel, moving along, with
sober faces and downcast eyes, speaking never a word
as their captors prepared to force them to their destin-
ation — the Justice’s house at Ingmire Hall near
Sedbergh.

Now from Drawwell Farm to Ingmire is some little
distance. The way hilly, and the roads ^re narrow
and rough. Bad going it is on those rpads even to-
day, and far worse in the times of which I write.
Therefore the troopers quickly grew weary of their
task, weary of trying to rein in their mettlesome horses
to keep pace with the slow steps of their prisoners,
weary, too, of even the sport of pricking at these last
with their swords, to try to make them go faster.

They had barely reached the bottom of the slope
when Ensign Hodgson, ever a restless youth, lost
patience. As soon as he found his horse on a bit of
level road, he called to his men, ‘ Halloo ! here’s
our chance for a canter! — We’ll leave the Lambs to
follow us to the slaughter-house at their own' sweet
will.’ Then, seeing mingled relief and consternation
on the men’s faces, he slapped his thighs with a loud
laugh and said: ‘Ye silly fellows, have no fear! No
Quaker ever yet tried to escape Irom gaol, nor ever
will. We can trust them to follow us in our absence
as well as if we were here to drive them. Quakers
haven’t th/*. wit to seek after their own safety.’

The a/udacityof the plan tickled the troopers. Fol-
lowing Hodgson’s example, they, one and'^all, raised
their plumed hats and, rising high in their stirrups,
bowed with mock courtesy, asHhey took leave of

350

AN UNDISTURBED MEETING

their prisoners.

‘ Farewell, sweet Lambkins,^ called out the En-
sign, ‘hasten your Quaker pace and meet us at the
slaughter-house at Ingmire Hall as fast as yon can,
OR ’ he cocked his pistol at them, and then, dash-
ing it up, fired a shot into "he air. With wild,shout-
ing and laughter the whole troop disappeared round
a turn of the road. ‘ To Sedbergh,’ they cried, ‘ to
Sedbergh fifst! Plcnt}' of time for a carouse, and yet
to arrive at Ingmire Hall as soon as the Lambs!’

Arriving in Sed bergh at a canter they slackened rein
at a tavern and ; efresh«-d themselves with a draught
of ale a nd an hour’s carouse, before setting off to meet
their prisoners at the Justice’s house.

When they arrived at Ingmire Hall, to their dis-
may, not a Quaker was in sight. Sending his men
off to scour the roads. Ensign Hodgson himself dis-
mounted with an oath on Justice Otway’s doorstep,
and went within to inquire if the Quakers from
Drawwell had yet arrived.

‘ The Quakers, whom you were sent to fetch
fromDA,wwell and for whose non-appearance you are
yourself wholly responsible, have not arrived,’ an-
swered the Justice tartly, raising his eyebrc;ws as if
to emphasise his words. All men knew that good Sir
John Otway was nofrriend to persecution; and gay
Lawrence Hodgson was no favourite of his.

With a louder oath than that with which he had
entered the house, the Ensign flung out ofJt again,
and rode off at the head of his men — all of tPem dis-
comfited by their vain search, for not a Quaker was
to be seen in th^ neighbourhood. The ‘Lambs’ were
less docile than hadbden supposed. After all, they had

351

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

successfully managed to ^void the ‘slaughter-house’;
they must have retreated to Drawwell, if they had
not even seized the opportunity to escape.

Back again along the road to Drawwell, therefore,
the whole sulky company of horsemen were obliged
to return, much out of humour. Cursing their leader’s
carelessness, as he doubtless cursed his own folly, they
trotted along, gloomily enough, till they came to the
bend of the road where the homestead coAies in sight,
and where they had taken leave of their prisoners.
There, as they turned the corner, suddenly they all
stopped, thunderstruck, pulling their horses back on
to their haunches in their amazement.

The Lambs had not escaped! Though they had
not followed meekly to the slaughter-house, at least
they had made no endeavours to flee, or even to re-
turn to the sheepfold on the hillside above them. All
the time that the soldiers had been carousing in the
alehouse, or searching the lanes, the little company
of Friends had remained in the very same spot where
the soldiers had left them nearly two hours before.

And there they were still, every one of them; —
sitting on the green, grassy bank by the way side. There
they we^-e, quietly’going on with their uninterrupted
worship. Yes; out there, under the shadow of the
everlasting hills, untroubled by the shadow of even a
passing cloud of fear, the Friends calmly continued
to wait upon God.

XXIII. BUTTERFLIES
IN THE- FELLS

^ My concern for God and His holy^
eternal truthwas then in the Norths
where God had placed a7id set me,^
MARGARET FOX.

H should be glad if thou would in-
cline to come ho7ne.^ that thou 7night
get a little Rest, methmks its the
most co7nfortable wheti 07ie has' a
ho7ne to be there, but the I.07^d give
us patience to bear all thingsi —
M. FOX to G. Fox, i68i.

V did not stir much ab?'oad during
the time I no7v stayed in the North;
but 2 vhen Frte^tdswere not with me
spent pretty 77iuch twie in writing
books and papers for Trutlis ser-
vice .'^ — G. FOX.

'‘All dear Friends p7-ess fo7'2mrd
iti the straight ivay.^

JOHN A UDLANIX

‘ Is 7iot liberty of co7iscicnce m re-
ligion a fu7idame7ttall . . . Libe7'ty
of conscie7ice is a 7iatvral right, and
he that would have it, ought to give
it, havvig liberty to settle what he
likes for the public. . . Nlliis I say
is fundarnental : it ought to be so.
It is for us a7id the ge7ieratio77s to
cornel — OLIVER cromwell.

XXIII. BUTTERFLIES
IN THE FELLS

ABOVE all other Saints in the Calendar, the
/ \ good people o'* Newcastle-upon-Tyne do
A m hold in highest honour Saint Ni^.holas,
since to him is dedicated the stately Church thot is the
pride and glory of their town. E’^eryone who dwells
in the honnfc Nor:h Counlrie knows well that shrine
of Saint Niciiolas, set on high on tlie steep northern
bank of the River Tyne. Beautiful for situation, the
joy of the who! North, is St. Nicholas. Therefore,
in olden times, one Roger Thornton, a wealthy mer-
chant of the town, saw fit to embellish it yet further
with a window at the Eastern end, of glass stained
with colours marvellous to behold. Men said indeed
that Merchant Roger clearly owed that window to
the Saint, seeing that when he first entered the town
scarce a dozen years before, he came but as a poor
pedlar, possessed of naught but ‘a hap, a halfpenny,
and a lambskin,’ whereas these few years spent under
the sha<#ow of che Saint’s protection had made him
already a man of great estate.

Roger Thornton it was who gav» the Eastern win-
dow to the Church, but none know now, for certain,
who first embellished the shrine with its crowning
gift, the tall steeple that gathers to itself not only the
affection qf all those who dwell beneath its shadow,
but also their glory and their pride. Some^believe
it was built by King David of Scotland: others by
one Robert de Rede, since his name may still be seen
carven upon thef stone by him who has skill to look.
But in^truth the architect hath carried both his name

355

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

and his secret with him, and the craftsmen of many
another larger and more famous city have sought in
vain to build such another tower. By London Bridge
and again at Edinburgh, in the capitals of two fair
kingdoms, may indeed be seen a steeple built in like
fashion, but far less fair. One man alone, he whose
very name hath been forgotten, hath known how to
swing with perfect grace a pinnacled Crown, formed
of stone yet delicate as lacework, aloft irf highest air.
Therefore to this day doth the Lantern Tower of
St. Nicholas remain without a peer.

A Lantern Tower the learned call it, and indeed
the semblance of an open lantern doth rise, supported
by pinnacles, in the centre of the Tower; but to most
men it resembles less a lantern than an Imperial crown
swung high in air, under a canopy of dazzling blue.
It is a golden crown in the daytime, as it shines on
high above the hum of the city streets in the clear
mid-daylight. It becomes a fiery crpwn when the sun
sets, for then the golden fleurs-de-lys on each of the
eight golden vanes atop of the pinnacles gleam and
glow like sparks of flame, climbing higher and ever
higher into the steep and burnished air. But it is a
jewelled crown that shines by night over the slumber-
ing town beneath; for then the turrets and pinnacles
are gemmed with glittering stals.

That Tower, to those who have been born under
it, is one of the dearest things upon this earth. Judge
then of 'he dismay that was caused to every man,
woman, and child, when Newcastle was being be-
sieged by the Scottish army during the Civil Wars,
at the message that came from the general of the be-
leaguering army, that were the town not surrendered
356

BUTTERFLIES IN THE FELLS

to him without delay, he would train his guns on the
Tower of St Nicholas itself, and lay that first in
ruins. Happily Sir John Marley, the English Com-
mander, who was likewise Mayor of the Tovm, was
more than a match for the canny Scot. And this was
the answer that the gallai t Sir John sent back from
the beleaguered town: that General Leslie might train
his guns on rhe Tower and welcome, if such were his
pleasure, tfut if he did sj, before he brought down
one sin ;le stone of it, he would *be obliged to take
the lives of his own Scottish prisoners, whom the guns
would fjiid as heir fir^t target there.

Sir John was as good as his word. The Scottish
iirisoners weie strung out in companies along the
Tower ledges, and kept there day after day, till the
Scottish Army had retreated, baffled for that time,
and St. Nicholas was saved. Therefore, thanks to Sir
John Marleyand his nimble wit, the pinnacled Crown
still soars up aloft into the sky, keeping guard over
the city of Newcastle to-day, as it hath done through -
out the centuries.

Little did the Friends, who came to Newcastle a
few years after the Scotsmen had departed, regard
the beauty of St. Nicholas or its Tower. They came
also desiring to besiege the town, though with only
spiritual weapons. The Church to them was but a
‘steeple-house, ’and the Tower akin to an idol. Thus
slowly do men learn that ‘the ways unto (^od are as
the number of the souls of the children of men,’
and that wherever a man truly seeketh God in what-
soever fashion*, so he do but seek honestly and with
his whole heart, Godfwill consent to be found of him.

357

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Yet though the Friends who came to Newcastle
came truly to besiege the town for love’s sake, not
with love did the town receive them. ‘Ruddy-faced
John Audland’ w’as the first to come, he who had
been one of the preachers that memorable Sunday
at Firbank Chapel, and who, having yielded place
to George Fox, had been in his turn mightily con-
vinced of Truth. ‘A man beloved of God, and of all
good men,’ was John Audland, ‘of an exceedingly
sweet disposition,' unspeakably loving and tenderly
affectionate, always ready to lend a helping hand to
the weak and needy, open-hearted, free and near to
his friends, deep intheunderstanding of the heavenly
mysteries.’ Yet little all this availed him. In New-
castle as elsewhere he preached the Truth, ‘full of
dread and shining brightness on his countenance.’
Certain of the townsfolk gathered themselves unto
him and became PYiends, but the authorities would
have none of the new doctrine, and straightway
clapped him into gaol. There he lay for a time, till
at last he was set free and went his way.

After him came George Fox, when some thirteen
years had gone by since Sir John Marley saved the
Tower, and General Leslie had returned discomfited
to Edinburgh. From Edinburgh, too, George Fox
had come on his homeward way after that eventful
journey to the Northern Kingdom, when ‘the in-
finite sparks of life sparkled about him as sqon as his
horse se|. foot across the Border.’ Weary he was of
riding when he reached the gates of Newcastle-upon-
Tyne. Yet ‘gladded’ in his heart was he, for as he had
passed by Berwick-upon-Tweed, the Governor there
had ‘shewn himself loving towards Friends,’ and,

358

BUTTERFLIES IN THE FELLS

though only a little Meeting had been gathered, ‘the
Lord’s power had been over all.’ As Fox and his
companion rode through the woods and beside the
3 ellow brown streams and over the heathery moors
of Northumberland they found and visited many
scattered Friends whose welcome had made George
Fox’s heart rejoice. But no sooner had he entered
the town than all his gladness left him, at the grievous
tale the fafihful Friends ofNewcastle had to tell. Ever
since John Audland’s preaching Had stirred the souls
of the townsfolk, the priests i.nd professors had done
their best to prevent Hhis pernicious poison from
spreading.’ Five Newcastle priests had wriitenabook,
entitled ‘the Perfect Pharisee under Monkish Holi-
ness,’ in which they blamed Friends for many things,
but above all for their custom of preaching in the
streets and open places, ’it is a pestilent heresy at
best,’ they said (though they used not these very
words), ‘yet did they keep it to themselves ’twere no
great harm, but we find no place hears so much of
Friends’ religion as streets and market-places.’

Ye4 evei' so their witness agreed not together.
For while the priests accused Friends of too much
preaching in public, a certain Alderman of the city,
Thomas Ledger by name, put forth three other
books against themf And his main charge was this —
‘that the QUAKERS WOULD NOT COME INTO ANY
GREAT TOWNS, BUT LIVED IN THE FELLS LIKE BUT-
TERFLIES.’

George Fox, hearingthese things from the Friends
assembled* to*gr^^t entrance to the town,

was tried in his spirit, and determined that the matter
should be dealt w it without more ado. The Journal

359

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAENTS

saith: ‘The Newcastle ^priests wrote many books
against us, and one Ledger, an Alderman of the town,
was very envious of truth and friends. He and the
priests had said, “the Quakers would not come into
great towns, but lived in the fells like butterflies.” I
took Anthony Pearson with me and went to this Led-
ger, and several others of the Aldermen, desiring to
have a meeting among them, seeing they had written
so many things against us: for we were now come, I
told them, into their great town. But they would not
yield we should have a meeting, neither would they
be spoke with, save only this Ledger and one other.
I queried: “Had they not called Friends Butterflies,
and said we would not come into any great towns?
And now they would not come at us, though they had
printed books against us; who are the butter-
flies NOW?’’

‘As we could not have a public meeting amongst
them we got a little meeting amongst friends and
friendlypeojile at the Gate-side. As I was passing by
the market-side, the power of the Lord rose in me, to
warn them of the day of the Lord that was corn'mg up-
on them. Andnotlongafterall the priests wereturned
out of their profession, when the King came in.’

Thus did those same envious priests, who had ac-
cused Friends of living like butterflies in the fells,
become themselves as butterflies, being chased out
of the great town, and forced to flit to and fro in the
open coui^^ry. The Friends, meanwhile, increased on
both sides of the river Tyne. In 1 65 7 George White-
head visited Newcastle, and was kindly received
in the house of one John Hove, who had been a
Lieutenant in the army before he became a Friend,
360

BUTJTERFLIES IN THE FELLS

Whitehead, himself one of the ‘Valiant Sixty/
writes; — ‘The Mayor of the town (influenced by the
priests), wo; Id not suffer us to keep any meeting
within the Liberty oi the Town, though in Gateside
{being out of the Mayor’s Liberty), our Friends had
settled a meeting at our beloved Friend JRichard
Ubank’s house. . . . The first meeting we then endeav-
oured ro have within the town ot Newcastle was in a
large roont taken on purpose by some f riends. . . .
The meeting was not fully gathered when the Mayor
of the Town and his Officers can e,andbyfoice turned
us out of the meeting ; and not ordy so, hat otil of the
Town also; for ihe Mayor and his Company com
manded us and went along us as far as the Bridge
over the river Tine that pens Newcastle and Gates-
head, upon which Bridge there is a Blew Stone to
which the Mayor’s Liberty e:^tcnds; when we came
to the stone, the Mayor gave his charge to each of us
in these words: “I charge and command you in the
name of Ills Highness the Lord Protector, That
you come no more into Newcastle to have any more
meetiifgs there at your peril.’”

The Friends, therefore, continued to meet at the
place that is called Gateside (though somt^say thnt
Goat’s head w^as the name of it at first), and there they
remained till, after Bivers persecutions, the}' were at
length suffered lo assemble within the walls of New-
castle itself, upon the north side of the ‘Blew Stone’
above the River Tyne. Here, in 1 698, the^diought a
plot of ground, within a stone’s-throw of St. Nicholas,
facing towards the street that the townsmen call Pil-
grim Street, since thither in olden days did many
weary pilgrims vvend*their way, seeking to come unto

361

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAJNTS

the Mound of Jesu on the outskirts of the town. And
that same Mound of Jesu is now called by men, Jesu
Mond, or shorter, Jesmond, and no longer is it the
resort of pilgrims, but rather of merchants and pleas-
ure seekers. Yet still beside the Pilgrim Street stands
the Meeting-House builtbythoseotherpilgrim souls,
those (Quakers, whom the men of the town in scorn
called ‘butterflies.’ And there, so far from flitting
over the fells, they have continued to hold their
Meetings and wo/ship God after their own fashion
within those walls for more than two hundred years.

Before ever this had come to pass, and while the
Quakers of N e wcastle were still without an assembling
place on their own side of the river, it happened that
a certain man among them, named Robert Jeckel,
being nigh unto death (though as yet he knew it not),
was seized with a vehement desire to behold George
Fox yet once more in the flesh, since full sixteen years
had gone by since his visit to the town.

Wherefore this same Robert Jeckcl, hearing that
his beloved friend was now again to be ff^und at
Swarthmoor, dwelling there in much seclusion, seek-
ing to regain the strength that had been sorely wasted
in long and terrible imprisonments, — this man, Rob-
ert Jeckel, would no longer bei)ersuaded or gainsaid,
but set out at once with several others, who were like-
minded and desirous to come as speedily as might
be to Swarthmoor.

In good heart they set forth, but that same day,
and before they had come even as far ais unto Hexham,
Robert Jeckel was seized with a sore sickness, w'here-
at his friends entreated him to return the way he came
362

BU'IJTERFLIES IN THE FELLS

to his own home and tender But he refused to
be dissuaded and would still press forward. At many
other places by the .vay iie was ill and suffering, yet
he would not be satisfied to turn ba:k or to stop until
he should arrive at Swarthmoor. And thither after
many days of sore travel he cam'e.

The Mistress of Swarthmoor was now i?o longer
Margaret Fell but Margaret Fox. Eight full years after
the death f)f her honoured husbai.d, Judge Fell, and
after long waiting to be sure tharihe thing was from
the Lord, she had been united in marriage with her
beloved friend, George fox, unto whom ‘:he was ever
a most loving .^nd dutiful wile. Therefore, when
Robeil Jeckel arri^’edwith hisfriends bcforethe high
arched stone gateway that led into the avenue that
approacheth Swarthmoor Hall, it was Mistress Fox,
who, with her husband, came to meet their guests.
Close behind followed her youngest daughter, Rachel
Fell, the Seventh Sister of .Swarthmoor Hall. She,
the Judge’s pet and plaything in her childhood, was
now a woman grown. Seeing by Roliert Jeckel’scoun-
tenanie that h.' was sorely stricken, Mistress Fox led
him straight to thefairguest chamber of Swarthmoor,
where she and her daughter nursed him with their
wonted tenderness and skill, hoping thus, if it might
be, to restore him t*o Iiis home in peace. But it had
been otherwise ordained, for Robert Jeckel, arriving
at Swarthmoor on the second day of the fifth month
that men call July, lay sick there butforniiie days and
tlien he died.

Luring his illness many and good words did he
say^ among others these: ‘ I'hough 1 was persuaded
to stay by the way (being indisposed), before 1 came

363

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAI,NTS

to this place, yet this was the place where 1 would
have been, and the place where I should be, whether
I live or die.’

George Fox, being himself, as I say, weakened by
his long suffering in Worcester Gaol, was yet able to
visit Robert Jeckel a*shelaya-dying, and exhorted him
to offer up his soul and spirit to the Lord, who gives
life and breath to all and takes it again. Whereupon
Robert Jeckel lifted uphis hands and said,i ‘The Lord
is worthy of it, andl have done it.’ George Fox then
asked him if he could say, ‘Thy will, oh God, be done
on earth as it is in heaven,’and he, lifting up his hands
again, and looking upwards with his eyes, answered
cheerfully, ‘he did it.’

Then, he in his turn, exhorting those about him,
said: ‘Dear Friends, dwell in love and unity together,
and keep out of jars, strife, and contentions, and be
sure to continue faithful to the end.’ And speaking
of his wife, he said, ‘ As to my wife, I give her up
freely to the Lord; for she loveth the Lord and He
will love her. I have often told my dear wife, as to
what we have of outw^ard things, it was the Lord’s first
before it was ours; and in that I desire she may serve
the truth to the end of her days.’

‘In much patience the Lord did keep him, and
he was in perfect sense and mehiory all the time of
his weakness, often saying, “Dear Friends, give meup
and weep not for me, for I am content with the Lord’s
doings." And often said that he had no pain, but
gradually declined, often lifting up his hands while
he had strength, praising the Lord, and mhde a com-
fortable end on the nth day of the fifth month, 1676.’

Thus did the joyful spirit of fhisdearfriend at last

364

BU'^TERFLIES IN THE FELLS

take flight for the Heavenlj Country, when, as he said
himself in his sickness, ‘ Soul separated from body,
the Spirit rtmrning to God that gave it, and the body
to the earth from whence it catiie.''

Yea, verily; his soul took flight for the Heavenly
Country, happier in its escape fro in the worn chry-
salis of his weak and weary body than anyglaS-winged
butterfly that flittcih over the fells of his own beloved
Northu mile rl and.

XXIV. THE VICTORY
OF AMOR STODDART

‘ Fromthe heart of the Puritan sects
sprang the religion of the Quakers^
in which many a war-worn soldier
of the Commofiwealth closed his vi-
sionary eyes I — G, m. trevelyan,

^ To be a man of war means to live
no longer than the life of the worlds
which is perishing; but to be a man
of the Holy Spirit^ a man born of
Godj a ma7i that wars not after ^he
fleshy a 7nan of the Kingdo77iof God^
as well as of England — that niea7is
to live beyo7id ti77iea7id age and men
and the worlds to be gathered into
that life which is Eter7tall

JOHN SA L TMA RSHy I 6 4 7 .

‘ Keep out of all ja7iglingforall that
areifi the transgressio7i are out f 7 0771
the law of love; but all that are in
the law of love co77ie to the La77ilts
power I — G. Eox.

‘ He cha77g€d his 7oeapo?ts^ wa7farc^
atid Captai7i . . . whcnhcdistcdhi77i'
self U7ider the Inuiner of Christ I —
w. PENN^ about f IVhitehead.

A prayer for the soldier sph'it,

‘ Teach us^ good Lord, to serve Thee
as Thou deserve st: to give and 710 1 to
count the cost ; to fight and not to heed
the wounds; to toil and not to seek
for rest ; to labour and not to ask for
^ii7iy reward^ save that of kiiowing
that we do Thy zvill: tJu’ough Jesus
CluistourLoi'd . '

IGNA TIUS LOYOLA,

XXiV. VICTORY OF
AMOR STODDART

e ' HR.IS1' disarnied Peter, and in so doing He
unbuckled the sword of every soldier/

TERTULMAN.

«/

A dauntless fighter in bis day vvas Captain Amor
Stoddart, seeing hr had served in the Parliamentary
Army thro jghoat the Civil Wars. In truth, it was no
child’s play to command a body of men as tough as
Oliver’s famous ^ronsid s. d'herefore Captain Stod-
dart had doubtless come tlirough many a bloody
struggle, and fought in many a hardly fought coniest
during those long wars, before the final victory was
won.

But now, not a single ’nemoi y remains of his small
individual share in those

‘ Old unhappy, far-oO' things,

And k’.ttles long ago.’

His Story has come down to us as a staunch com-
rade and a valiant fighter, in a different kind of war-

^ w

fare. His victory was won in a struggle in whiclf all the
visible weapons were on theotherside; when, through
long years, he had only the armour of meekness and
of love wherewith to oppose hardship and violence
and wrong.

Wherefore, of this fight and of this victory, his own
name remauis as a symbol and a sign. Not in vain
was he called at his birth ‘Amor,’ which, in the Latin

tongue signifies ‘ Lov^,’ as all men know.

/.

2 B

369

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

The first meeting between Captain Amor fetoddart
and him who was to be •thereafter his spirit’s earthly
captain in the new strange warfare that lay before
him, happened on this wise.

In the year 1648, when the long Civil Wars were
at last nearing their close, George Fox visited Mans-
field iruNottinghamshire and held a meeting with the
professors (that is to say the Puritans) there. It was
in that same year of 1648, when every day the shadow
was drawing nearer of the fatal scaffold that should be
erected within the Palace at Whitehall the following
January. But although that shadow crept daily nearer,
men, for the most part, as yet perceived it not. Fox
himself was at this time still young, as years are
counted, being only twenty-four years of age. Four
other summers were yet to pass before that memor-
able day when he should climb to the summit of old
Pendle Hill, and, after seeing there the vision of a
‘ great people to be gathered,’ should begin himself
to gather them atlorbank andSwarlhmoor and many
another place.

George, though still young in years, was already
possessed not only of a strange and wonderful pre-
sence, but also of a gift to perceive and to draw the
souls ohother men, and to knit them to his own.

T went again to Mansfield,’ be says in his Journal,
‘where was a Great Meeting of professors and people,
where I was moved to pray ; and the Lord’s powerwas
so great that the house seemed to be shaken. When
1 had done, one of the professors said, “ It was now
as in the days of the Apostles, when the house was
shaken where they were.” ’

After P"ox had finished praying, with this vehe-

370

TME VICTORY OF AMOR

mence mat seemed to shake the house, one of the
professors began to pra> in bis *urn, but in such a
dead and formal way that even the other professors
w. re grieved thereat and rebuked him. Whereupon
this praying professor came in all humility to Fox,
besejching him that he would *pray again. ‘But/
says Fox, ‘I could not pray in any man’s Still,
though he could not make a prayer to order, he
agreed to i^eet with these same professors another
day. * •

This second meeting was another ‘Great Meet-
ing.’ From far and wide the professors and people
gathered to see ihe man who had leaint to pray. But
the professors did not trul\ seem to care to learn the
secret. They went on tall'.ing and arguing together.
They were ‘jangling,’ as Fox calls it fthat is to sa>,
using endless strings of wwJs to talk about sacred
things, without really feeling the truth of them in their
hearts), jangling all togethei, when suddenly the door
opened and a grave young officer walked in. ‘ ’Tis
Captain Amor Stoddart, of Noll’s Army,’ llie pro-
fe.ssors #aid or-o to another, as, hardly sto[)r)ing for a
moment at the stranger’s entrance, they continued
to ‘jangle’ among themselves. Th^y went oi^ speak-
ing of the most holy things, talking even about the
blood of Christ, withbul any feeling of solemnity, till
Fox could bear it no longer.

‘As they were discoursing of it,’ he says, ‘ I saw
through the immediateopeningof the invisi4)le Spirit,
the blood of Christ; andcriedouiamong them saying,
“ Do you n(?t see the blood of Christ? See it in your
hearts, to sprinkle your hearts and consciences from
dead works to serve the living God?” P'or I saw the

37 ^

A BOOK OF QUAKER SATNTS

blood of the New Covenant how it came into tfie heart.
This startled the professors who would have the blood
only without them, and not in them. But Captain Stod-
dart was reached, and said, “ Let the youth speak, hear
the youth speak,” when he saw that they endeavoured
to bear me down With many words.’

‘ C^tain Stoddart was reached.’ He, the soldier,
accustomed to the terrible realities of a battlefield,
knew the sight of blood for himself oply too well.
George Fox’s words may seem perhaps mysterious to
us now, but they came home to AmoFand made him
able to see something of the same vision that Fox
saw. We may not be able to see that vision ourselves,
but at least we can feel the difference between having
the Blood of Christ, that is the Life of Christ, within
our hearts, and only talking and ‘jangling ’ about it,
as the professors were doing. ‘Captain Stoddart was
reached.’ Having been ‘reached,’ having seen, if only
for one moment, something of what the Cross had
meant to Christ, and having felt His Life within, Amor
became a different man. Totakethe livesof hisfellow-
men, to shed their blood for whom that Blood had
been shed, was henceforth for him impossible. He
unbuckled his sw.ord, and resigning his captaincy in
Oliver’s conquering army, just when victory was at
hand after the stern struggle, hefollowed his despised
Quaker teacher into obscurity.

For seven long years we hear nothing more of him.
Then he appears again at George Fox’s side, no longer
Captain Stoddart the Officer, but plain Amor Stod-
dart, a comrade and helper of the fir^t Rublishers of
Truth.

In the year 1655, Fox’s Journal records; ‘On the

372

Tl|fE VICTORY OF AMOR

sixth day I had a large meting near Colchester ^ to
which many professorsand the Independent teachers
came. Aft-'r I had done speaking and was stepped
down irom the place on which i stood, one of the
Indej)endent teachers began to make a “jangling”
[it seems they sdll went on jangling, even after seven
long years !j, which Amor Stoddart perceiving said,
“Stand up again, George!” for 1 was going away and
did not at t#ie first hear tnemd

If Amor Stoddart had unbuclcled his sword, evi-
dently he had not lost the power of grapi)ling with
difficulties, of swiffly seeing t’.e right thing ic do, and
of giving his Oi^iers with soldier-like precision.

‘Stand up again, George! ’ — a quick, military
command, in the few^est possible words. George Fox
was more in the habit of commanding other people
than of being coirmandcd himself; but he knew his
comrade and obeyed without a word.

‘I stood up again,’ he says, ‘when I heard the In-
dependent [the man who had been jangling], and
after a while the Lord’s power came over him and all
h}^ cofhpany. who were confounded, and the T^ord’s
truth was over all. A great flock of sheep hath the
Lord in that country that feed in His pasturgs of life.’

Nevertheless, without Amor Stoddart the sheep
would have gone away hungry, and would not have
been fed at that meeting.

Again we hear of Amor a little later in the same
year, still at George Fox’s side, but this ^ime not as
a passive spectator, nor even merely as a resourceful
comrade. He was now himself to be a sufferer for the

* It was on thas visit to Colchester that Geor^^c Fox had his
farcwt;ll interview with Janies Parnell, imprisoned in the Castle.

373

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAfNTS

Truth. He still lives fof us through his share in a
strange but wonderful scene of George Fox’s life. A
few months after the meeting at Colchester, the two
friends visited Cambridge, and ‘there/ says Fox in
his Journal, ‘the scholars, hearing of me, were up and
were exceeding rudte. I kept on my horse’s back and
rode through them in the Lord’s power. “Oh,” said
they, “he shines, he glisters,” but they unhorsed
Amor Stoddart before we could get to th^ inn. When
we were in the inn they were so rud^ in the courts
and the streets, so that the miners, colliers, and car-
ters could never be ruder. And the people of the inn
asked us ‘what we would have for supper’ as is the
way of inns. “Supper,” said I, “were it not that the
Lord’s power is over them, these rude scholars look
as if they would pluck us in pieces and make a supper
of us!”’

After this treatment, the two friends might have
been expected to keep away from Cambridge in the
future; but that was not their way. Where the fight
was hottest, there these two faithful soldiers of the
Cross were sure to be found. The very next year se w
Fox back in Cambridgeshire once more; and again
Amor Sl;oddart was with him, standing by his side and
sharing all dangers like a valiant and faithful friend.

‘I passed into Cambridgeshire,’ the Journal con-
tinues, ‘and into the fen country, where I had many
meetings, and the l.ord’s truth spread. Robert Cra-
ven, who had been Sheriff of Lincoln, was with me
[it would be interesting to know more about Robert
Craven, and where and how he was “ reached ”], and
Amor Stoddart and Alexander Parker. AV^e went to
Crowland, avery rude place; for fhe townspeople were
374

ri^E VICTORY OF AMOR

got together at the inn we^went to, and were half
drunk, both Driest and people. I reproved them for
their drunkenness and warned them of the day of the
Lord thaL was coming upon all the wicked ; exhorting
them to leove their wickedness and to turn to the
Lord in time Wliiie I v^a^ thus spenking ro them the
priest and the clerk broke out into a rage, ancf got np
the tongs and fire shovel at us, so that had not the
I.ord’s ])ow#r preserved us we might have been mur-
dered amongst^theni. V'et, lor nil their rudeness and
violence, some received the truth then, and have
stood in it ever

George Fox ,vas not the only man to find ataithfiil
and staunch siiDi>orter in Amor Sioddnrt. There is
another glimpse of him, again standing at acomrade’s
side in time of danger, but the comrade in this case
is not hbx but ‘der'* William Dewsbury,^ one of the
best loved of all the early Friends.

Amor Stocldart was Dewsbury^s companion that
sore day at ilristol wTen the tidings came from New
England overseas, that the first two Quaker Martyrs,
Williait! Robinson and Marrnaduke vSteveiison, had
been hanged for their faith on Boston Common.
Heavy at heart were the Bristol Fwends at the news,
andnotthey only, for assembled with them were some
New England Friencls who had been banished from
their families and from their homes, under pain of
the same, death that the martyrs had suffered.

‘We were bowed down u)ito our (}od,’ 4 Dewsbury
writes, ‘and prayer was made unto Him when there
came a knocking at the door. It came upon rny spirit
that it was the rude people, and the life of God did
mightily arise, and thJyhadno power to come in until

375

A BOOK OF QUAKER SA|:NTS

we were clear before oi^ God. Then they came in,
setting the house about with muskets and lighted
matches. So after a season of this they came into the
room, where I was and Amor Stoddart with me. I
looked upon them when they came into the room, and
they cried as fast as they could well speak, “We will
be civifl We will be civil

T spoke these words, “See that you be so.” They
ran forth out of the room and came no more into it,
but ran up and down in the house with their weapons
in their hands, and the Lord God caused their hearts
to fail and they passed away, and not any harm done
to any of us.’

Eleven years after this pass in almost complete
silence, as far as Amor is concerned. Occasionally
we hear the bare mention of his name among the
London Friends. One short entry in Fox’s Journal
speaks of him as having ‘buried his wife.’ Then the
veil lifts again and shows one more glimpse of him.
It is the last.

In 1670, twenty-two years after that first meeting
at Mansfield, when Captain Stoddart came fato l^he
room, and said, ‘Let the youth speak,’ George Fox,
now a mianworn w«th his sufferings and service, came
into another room to bid farewell to his old comrade
ashelaya-dying. Fox himself had been brought near
to death not long before, but he knew that his work
was not yet wholly finished, he was not yet ‘fully
clear’ in fes Ma.ster’s sight.

‘Under great sufferings, sorrows, and oppressions
I lay several weeks,’ he writes in his Jourhal, ‘where-
by I was brought so low that few thought I could live.
When those about me had giveh me up to die, Lspoke
37b

T^E VICTORY OF AMOR

to them to get me a coach to carry me to Gerard
Roberts, about twelve miles off, for I found it was
my place ^o go thither. So I went down a pair of
stairs to the conch, and when 1 came to the coach
1 was like to have fallen down, I was so weak and
feeble, but I got up into die ^oach, and some friends
with me. When I came to Gerard’s, aft^r I had
stayed about three weeks thece. it was with me to
go to Enfuild. Friends were afr .id of my removing,
but I told them mat i might safety go. When I had
taken my leave of Gerard and had come to Enfield,

I went first to vish Amor Stoddart, who kny very
weak and aim*, t s{>eecnless. Iwas moved to tell him
‘‘that he had been faithful as a man and faithful to
God, and the immortal Seed, of Life was his crown.”
Many more words I was moved to speak to him,
though I was thc’^ so w'eak, 1 could scarcely stand,
and within a few days after. Amor died.’

That is all. Very simj'ly he passes out of sight,
having heard hiscomrade’s ‘welldone’; — thisvaliant
soldier who renounced his sword.

^ Hi« name. AMOR, still holds the secret of his
power, his silent patience, and of his victory, for

‘ OMNIA VINCIT AAtOR.’

XJiV. THE

MARVELLbUS VOY-
AGE OF THE GOOD
SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

'‘Intheiyth Century England was
peculiarly rich^ ^ not in great mys-
tics^ at any rate in mystically mhided
men. Mysticism^ it seems ^ was in the
air; broke outu7ider many disguises
and affected many forms of life ! —
E, UNDERHILL,, ^ My Sticisifl I

'He who says "Yesf responds, obeys,
co-operates, and allows this re si derit
seed of God, or Christ Light, to have
]ull sway ifi him, becoines trans-
formed thereby and recreated mto
likeness to Christ by whom the in ner
seed was pla7ited, afid of 7vhosc na-
ture it is I R UFUS M, JONES.

‘ Throughwinds and tides, one com-
pass guides I A. H. CLOUGH.

'Have 7ne7xy upon me, 0 God, for
Thine oceanis so great, a?id 7ny little
bark is so small I — Breton Fisher-
mans Prayer.

'Be faithful and still, till the ivinds
cease and the storm be over I . . .

' Friefids\felloivship must be in the
Spirit, and all Friejids must know
oneafiother in the Spirit a7id power
of Godl G. FOX.

‘ Christopher Holder akd I are go-
ing . . . in obedience to the will of
our God, whose will is our joy I —

JOHN COPELAND, I 6 5 7 .

‘ The log of the little “ JVoodhouse^*
has beco77ie a saaed classic.^ - —
WILLIAM LITTLKBOY, Swarth-
moor Lecture, 1917.

x:^v. THE

MARVELL-OUS VOY-
AGE OF THE GOOD
SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

M aster Robert fowler o# Burling-
ton was a well-known figure in all the
^:ihing towns and vil’agcs along the York-
shire coast in ine year ('f grace 1657. A man of
substance was he, a master manner-, wall skilled in
his craft; buildmg his own ships and sailing them
withal, and n .er to ue turned back from an adven-
turous voyage. Many fine vessels he had, sailing
over the broad waters, taking the Yorkshire cargoes
of wool and hides to distant lands, and bringing
back foreign goods in exchange, to be sold again
at a profit on his return to old England’s shores.
Thus up and down the Yorkshire coast men spoke
and thought highly of Master Robert Fowler’s judg-
ment in all matters pertaining to the sea. On larul,
too, ke seemed prudent and skilful, though some
folks looked at him askance of late years, since he
had Joined himself to that sti^nge and perverse
people known as the Quakers.

Yet, in spite of what his neighbours considered
his new-fangit’d religion. Master Robert Fowler was
prospering in all his worldly affaiiS. Even now on
the sunny day when our story opens, was hard
at work putting the last touches to a new boat of
graceful proportions andgallant curves, that bade fair
to be a yet more notable seafarer than any of her
distant sisters'

,?,8i

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Why then did Master Robert Fowler pau^e more
than once in his work to heave a deep sigh, and
throw down his tools almost pettishly ? Why did
he suddenly put his fingers in his ears as if to shut
out an unwelcome sound, resuming his work there-
after with double sp^ed? No one was speaking to him.
The mid^day air was very still. The haze that often
broods over the north-east coast veiled the horizon.
Sea and sky melted into one another till it was
impossible to say where earth ended and heaven
began. An unwonted silence reigned even on Bur-
lington Quay. No sound was to be heard save for
the tap, tap, tap of Master Robert Fowler’s hammer.

Again he dropped his tools. Again he looked up
to the sky, as if he were listening to an unseen voice.

Someone was truly speaking to him, though no
faintest sound vibrated on the air. His inward ear
heard clearly these words —

‘Thou hast her not for nothing.’

His eyes travelled proudly over the nearly com-
pleted vessel. Every one of her swelling curves he
knew by heart; had learned toknowand lovethrough
long months of toil. How still she lay, the beauty,
still as a bird, poising on the sea. Ah! but the day
was coining when she would spread her wings and
skim over tlic ocean, buoyant and dainty as one of the
terns, those sea-swallows that with their sharp white
wnngs even now were hovering round her. Built for
use she was too, not merely to take the eye. Although
small of size more bales of goods could be stowed
away under her shapely decks than in many another
larger clumsier vessel. Who should know this belter
than Robert, her maker, who had planned it all?

382

GQOD SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

For^what had he planned her?

Was it for tne voyage*to the Eastern Mediter-
ranean that had been the desire of his heart for many
years ? How well he knew it, that voyage he had
never made ! Down the Channel he wuuld go, past
Ushant and safely acr >ss the ‘Bay. Then, vdien
Finisterre had dropped to ^eeward^ it woulc^be but a
few days’ sail along the pleasant coasts of Portugal
till Gibraltar was reached. And then, heigh ho! for
a fair Voyage in the sumn^cr .easori, w'eek after week
over acrim bltie sea lothe land-locked harbour where
flat -roofed, white-wall', d houses, stately palm-trees,
rosy domes ar; ^ minai jts, minored in the still water,
gazed down at their own reflections.

Was the Woodhouse for this?

He had jdanned her for this dream voyage.

Why then came that other Voice in his heart
directly he began to build: ‘fashion thkk a ship
FOR THE SERVICE OF TRUTH 1 ’ And now that she
was nearly completed, why did the Voice grow daily
more insistent, giving ever clearer directions ?

W^at a bird she was ! His own bird of the sea,
ins beautiful ^VoodhouseX So thought Master Robert
Fowler. But then again came the insistent Voice
wiihin, speaking yet more clearly and distinctly than
ever before : ‘thoi5 hast her not for nothing.’

The vision of his sea-swallow, her white wings
gleaming in the sun as she dropped anchor in that
still harbour; the vision of the white^and rose-
coloured city stretched like an encircling arm around
the turquaise •waters, these dreams faded relentless-
ly from his sight. Instead he saw the Woodhouse
beating up wekiily against a bleak and rugged shore

3B3

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAIWTS

on which grey waves were breaking. Angryg white
teeth those giant breakers* showed ; teeth that would
grind a dainty boat to pieces with no more compunc-
tion than a dog who snaps at a fly. Must he take her
there? A vision of that inhospitable shore was con-
stantly with him as-he worked. ‘ New England was
presented before him.' Day after day he drove the
thought from him. Night after night it returned.

‘ Thou hast her not for nothing. She is needed
for the service of Truth.' Master Robert Fowler
grew lean and wan with inward struggle, but yield
his will he could not, yet disobey the Voice he did
not dare. When his wife and children asked what
ailed him he answered not, or gave a surly reply.
Truth to tell, he avoided their company all he could,
— and yet a look was in his eyes when they did not
notice as if he had never before felt them half so
dear. At length the long-expected day arrived when
the completed vessel sailed graciously out to sea.
But there was no gaiety on board, as there had been
when her sister ships had departed. No cargo had
she. No farewells were said. Master Robert Jf'owler
stole aboard when all beside were sleeping. The
WoodJiouse slipped from the grey harbour into the
grey sea,* noiselessly as a bird. None of the crew
knew what ailed the master, no; why his door was
locked for long hours thereafter, until the York-
shire coast first drew dim, and then faded from the
horizon. He would not even tell them whither the

f

vessel was bound. ‘ Keep a straight course ; come
back at four bells, and then I will direct you,’ was
all his answer, when the mate knocked at his door
for orders.

,'^84

GObD SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

But within the cabin a was wrestling with
himself upon his knees : till at last in agony he cried :
‘E’en taice he boat, Lord, an so Thou wilt, for I
hrve no power to give her Thee. Yet truly she is
Thine.’

At that same hour in London an anxiofis little
cnmppny was gathered in a house at the back side of
Thomas Aixistles C’hurch, over the door of which
swung the welhknown sign A the Fleur-de-luce.

The master of the house, Fnend Gerard Roberts,
a merchant of Watling Street, sat it the top of t!ie
table in a smalU.pperroom. Theanxietyonhis coun-
tenance was reilected in the faces round his board.
Seven men and lour womeu were there, all soberly
clad as befitted ministering Friends. They were
not eating or drinking, but solemnly seeking for
guidance.

* Can no ship then be found to carry us to the
other side? ln)r truly the Lord’s wDrd is as a fire and
hammer in me, though in the outward appearance
th^re i^no likcUhood of getting passage,’ one Friend
was saying.

‘Ships in plenty thcreare bound for New England,
but ne’er a one that is willing to carry even one
Quaker, let alone eleven,’ Friend Roberts answered.

‘ The colonists’ new laws are strict, and their punish-
ments are savage. I know, Friends, ye are all ready,
aye and willing, to suffer in the service of «I>uth. It
is riot merely the threatened cropping of the ears of
every Qual^er who sets foot ashore that is the diffi-
culty. It is the one hundred pounds fine for every
Quakipr landed, notlevied on the Friends themselves,
2 C 385

A BOOK OF QUAKER SaInTS

mind you — that were sifnple — but on the owner of
the boat in which they shall have voyaged. This it is
that hinders your departure. It were not fair to ask
a man to run such risk. It is not fair. Yet already I
have asked many in vain. Way doth not open. We
must needs leave it, and see if the concern abides.’

Clear as a bell rose the silvery tones of a young
woman Friend, one who had been formerly a serv-
ing-maid at Cammsgill Farm : ' Comniit thy way
unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and, He shall bring
it to pass. Shall not He who setteth a bound to the
sea that it shall not pass over, and taketh up the isles
as a very little thing — shall not He be trusted to find
a ship for His servants who trust in Him, to enable
them to perform His will ? ’ As the clear bell-like
tones died away the little company, impelled by a
united instinct, sank into a silence in which time
passed unnoticed. Suddenly, at the same moment, a
weight seemed to be removed from the hearts of alK
They clasped hands and separated. And at that very
moment, although they knew it not, far away on the
broad seas, a man, wrestling on his knees' in the
cabin of his vessel, was saying with bitter tears,
‘E’en take. Lord, .*n so Thou wilt, though I have no
power to give her to Thee. Yet truly she is Thine.’
When four bells were sounded on the good ship
Woodhouse^ and a knock came to the door of the
cabin as the mate asked for directions, it. was in a
steady voice that Master Robert Fowler replied from
within, ‘Mark a straight course for London; and
after — w’hithersoever the Lord may direct.’

Blithely and gaily henceforward the Woodhouse
skimmed her way to the mouth of the Thames and
386

GObD SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

droppecJ anchor at the port of London. But as yet
Master Robert P'owler knew nothing of the anxious
group ot F: 'ends waiting to be taken toNew England
o the service of Truth (five of them having already
been deported thence for the offence of being
Quakers, yet anxious to retur n and take six others
with them). Neither did these Friends knibw any-
thing of Master Robert Fowler, nor of his good ship
Woodhouse •

Yet, thougl] unknown to each 6ther, he and they
alike were well known to Ore Mear\ were guided
by One I land, vveF.j listening to the direction^ of One
Voice, l'herc.»>re, though it may setun a strange
chance, it was not wonderful really that \vithin a few
hours of the arrival of the \ '/oodhouse in the Thames
Master Robert Fowler and Friend Gerard Roberts
met each other fa e to tacc in London City. Nor
was it strange that the ship's captain should be moved
to tell the merchant of the exorcise of his spirit about
his ship. In truth all Friends who visited London
in those days were wont to unburden themselves of
thgir perplexities to the master ofthat Ijosjiita ble house
over whose doorway sw ung the sign of the Fleur-de-
liiee. Lightly he told it — almost tis a jest — -Jhc folly
of the notion that a vessel of such small tonnage could
be needed to face the terrors of the terrible Atlantic.
Surelyaprudenlmerciiant like Friend Roberts w'ould
tell him to pay no heed to visions and inner voices,
and such like idle notions? But Gerai^ Roberts
did not scoff. He listened silently. A look almost
of awe stol^ over his face. The first words he uttered
were, Tt is the Lord’s doing and it is marvellous in
our ey^s.’ And at these words Master Robert Fo wler^s

387

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

heart sank down, down Ijke lead.

Long afterwards, describing the scene, he says :

* Also when (the vessel) was finished and freighted,
and made to sea, contrary to my will, was brought to
London, where, speaking touching this matter to Ger-
ard Roberts and others, they confirmed the matter in
behalf 6f the Lord, that it must be so.*

‘ It must be so.* This is the secret of Guidance
from that day to this. The Inner Voice, alone is not
always enough fof action; the outer need or claim of
service alone is not necessarily a call. But when
the Inner Voice and the outer need come together,
then truly the will of the Lord is plain, and ‘It must
be so.*

Master Robert Fowler* was not yet willing or
ready to sacrifice his own wishes. A decisive victory
is not to be won in one battle, however severe, but
only throughout the stress of a long campaign. The
struggle in his cabin, when he allowed the ship*s head
to be turned towards London, must needs be fought
out again. The unreasonableness of such a voyage in
such a vessel, the risk, the thought of the dangers and
misery it would bring, took possession of his mind
once more, as he himself confesses: ‘Yet entering in-
to reasoning and letting in temptation and hardships,
and the loss of my life, wife, arid children, with the
enjoyment of all earthly things, it brought me as low
as the grave, and laid me as one dead to the things of
God.’ o

‘ Let the sacrifice be made, if it must be made,’
he said to himself, ‘but it is too mucfi to' expect any
man to make it willingly.’ For days he went about, in
his own words, ‘ as one dead.*

3SS

(JObD SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

The eagerness of the Frieds to depart, their plans
for the voyage, their happy cares, only loaded his
spirit the r ;ore. It was a dark, sad, miserable time;
a’^d a dark, sad, miserable man was the owner of the
IVoodhouse

Till on a certain day, the Friends coming as usual
to visit his ship brought another with them, a Stranger;
»aller, stronger, sturdier than tnem all ; a man with
a long dro(^)ing nose and piercing eyes — yes, and
leather breeches I It was, h cnuld*be no other than
George J/ox !

What did he s-ay to Robert Fowder ? WLrt words
did he use ? Fid he argue or command ? That was
unnecessary. I'Ik' mere p 'csence of strong faith
fill servant of the Lord dr'w out a like faithfulness in
the other more timid soul

Robert Fowler’s narrative continues :

‘ but by His instrument, George Fox, was I re-
freshed and raised up again^ which before was much
contrary to myself that 1 could have as willingly have
died as gone; but by the strength of God I w'as now
mjde\filling to do His will ; yea even the custoinsand
fashions of the customs house could not stop me.’

‘Made willing to do His will.’ •Fhere is tjie secret
of this ‘ wonderful voyage.’ For it wtis absurdly
dangerous to think of sailing across the Atlantic in
such a vessel as the Woodhouse: or it would have
been, had it been a mere human plan. But if the all-
pow'erful, almighty Will of God really c«minanded
them to go, then it was no longer dangerous but the
only safe tFIing they could do.

‘Our trembling hands held in Thy strong and lov-
ing gr;isp, what shalf even the weakest of us fear?'

' 389

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAlNTS

Perhaps Master Rol^ert expected when once he
was ready to obey cheerfully, that all his difficulties
would vanish. Instead, fresh difficulties arose; and the
next difficulty was truly a great one. The press-gang
came by, and took Robert Fowler’s servants off by
force to help to m^an the British fleet that was being
fitted dut to fight in the Baltic; took them, whether
they would or no, as Richard Sellar was to be captured
in the same way, seven years later.

So now the loiig voyage to America must be under-
taken not only in too small a boat, but with too few
sailors to work her. Besides Robert Fowler, only two
men and three boys were left on board to sail the
ship on this long, difficult voyage.

Presently the Friends began to come on board;
and if the captain's heart sank anew as he saw the
long string of passengers making for his tiny boat —
who shall wonder or blame him? It was a very
solemn procession of weighty Friends.

In front came the five, who had been in America
before, and who were going back to face persecution,
knowing what it meant. Their names weve : fjrst
that ‘ancient and venerable man’ William Brend;
then young Christopher Holder of Winterbourne in
Gloucestershire, a well-educated man of good estate;
John Copeland of Holderness in Yorkshire; Mary
Weatherhead of Bristol; and Dorothy* Waugh, the
serving-maid of Preston Patrick, who had been ‘con-
vinced ai>l called to the ministry’ as she went about
her daily work in the family of Friend John Camm,
at Cammsgill.

She sometimes spelled her name Dorithy. which is not the
way to spell Dorothy now, but spelling'yas much less fixed in those
clays.

390

GOOD SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

Afield them followed the other five who had not
crossed the Atlantic before, hut who were no less
eager to face unknown difticiilties and dangers.
Their 'Tames were William llcbinson the London
merchant; Robert Hodgson ;‘Hiniiphrey Norton (re-
member Humphrey Nor: on, he wiM be heard ofagain);
Richard Doudney, ‘an innv)cent man who SGffved the
Lord in sincerity'^ and Mary Clark, the wife of John
Clark, a London Friend, who, V&e most oi ihc others,
had already unclvirg(»ne i.mch suffering for her faith.
On boaid the \Voodkoure they all came, stepping on
deck one after th^other solemnly and sedately, while
the anxious c ptain watched them and wondered
how many more were to come, and where they were
all to he lodged. Once they were on board, however,
things changed and felt (jiiite different. It was as if
an Unseen l^assenger had come with them.

This is Robert Fowler’s own account; ‘UjTon the
I St day of Fourth Month called June received I the
Lord’s scivants aboaid, Who came with a mighty
hand and an outstretched arm with them ; so that
with courage we set sai^ and came to the Downs
the vjecond day, where our dearly beloved William
Dewsbury with MichaelThompso\j came aboard, and
in them wewercmucli refreshed; and,recomrnending
us to the grace of Cibd, we launched forth,’

After this his narrative has a different ring:
Master Fowler was no longer going about his ship
with eyes cast down and hanging head i^d a heart
full of fear. He had straightened his back and was a
stalwart marinbr again. Perliaps this was partly owing
to the great pleasure that came to him before they
actually set sail, wheh, as he tells, William Dewsbury

391

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

came on board to visit the travellers. ^DearWilliam

t

Dewsbury ’ was the one Friend of all others Robert
Fowler must have wished to see once more before
leaving England, for it was William Dewsbury’s
preaching that had ‘convinced’ Robert Fowler and
made him become a Friend a few years before. It
was WihMam Dewsbury’s teaching about the blessed-
ness of following the inner Voice, the inner guidance,
that had led him to offer himself and th^ Woodhouse
for the service of Truth.

Perhaps he said, half in joke, half in earnest, ‘ O
William Dewsbury! O William Dewsbury I thou hast
much toanswer for! If I had nevermet thee I should
never have undertaken this voyage in my little boat !’
If he said this, I think a very tender, thankful light
came into William Dewsbury’s face, as he answered,
‘Let us give thanks then together, brother, that the
message did reach thee through me; since without
this voyage thou could’st not fully have known the
power and the wonder of the Lord.’

Quakers do not have priests to baptize them, or
bishops to confirm or ordain them, as Church*j^eople
do. Yet God’s actual presence in the heart is often
revealed first throitgh the message of one of His mes-
sengers. Therefore there is a special bond of tender
fellowshipandfriendshipbetweeh those who are truly
fathers and children in God, even in a Society where
all are friends. In this relation William Dewsbury
stood to Robert Fowler.

Reason and fear raised their heads once again,
even after William Dewsbury’s visit. Robert Fowler
thought of going to the Admiral in the Downs to
complain of the loss of his serVants, and to ask that

392

GO‘OD SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

a convey might be sent w^h them. But he did not
go, becausf^, as he says, ‘From which thing I was
withhoideii by that Hand which was my Helper.^

The south wind began to blow, and they were
obliged to put in at Portsmouth, and there there were
plenty of rren waiting lo be Ciigaged, out when they
heard that this tiny vessel was actually veriluring to
cross the Atlantic, not one would sail in her, and this
happened %gain at South Yarmouth, where they put
in a lew day*? Jater.

At Portsmouth, however, t’leFriendswcrenotidle.
They went ashore and held a meeting, or, a.. Robert
Fowler puts it, They went forth and gathered sticks
and kindled a hrt, and left it burning.' Not real sticks
for a real fire, of course, hut a fire of love and service
in people’s he^erts, that would help to keep the cold
world warm in afttr days.

This was their last lask in England. A few hours
later they had quitted her chores. The coast-line that
followed tliein faithfully at first, dropped behind
gradually, growing fainter and paler, then resting
lii;e a ftiough; upon the sea, till it finally disai)peared.
Only a vast expanse of heaving waters surrounded
the travellers.

At first it seemed as il their courage was not to be

«

too severely tested. ‘Three pretty large ships which
were for the Newfoundland' appeared, and bore the
Woodhoi^se company for some fifty leagues. In their
vicinity the smaller vessel might have mftie the voy-
age, perilous at best, with a certain amount of con-
fidence. But the Dutch warshi[)s were known to be
not far distant, and in order to escape them the three
‘pretty large ships made off to the noj-thward, and

393

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

left US without hope or h^lp as to the outwarS.’

The manner of the departure of the ships was on
this wise. Early in the morning it was shown to Hum-
phrey Norton — who seems to have been especially
sensitive to messages from the invisible world —
‘ that those were nigh unto us who sought our lives.’
He calldd Robert Fowler, and gave him this warning,
and added, ‘ Thus saith the Lord, ye shall be carried
away as in a mist.’ ‘ Presently,’ says Rolrert Fowler,
‘we espied a grea‘t ship making up ^o us, and the
three great ships were much afraid, and tacked
about with what speed they could; in the very in-
terim the Lord fulfilled His promise, and struck our
enemies in the face with a contrary wind, wonderfully
to our refreshment. Then upon our parting from these
three ships we were brought to ask counsel of the
Lord, and the word was from Him, “Cut through
and steer your straight course and mind nothing but
Me.” ’ '

‘ Cut through and steer your straight course, and
mind nothing but Me!’ Alone upon the broad At-
lantic in this cockle-shell of a boat ! Only a tl;ock]e-
shell truly, yet it held a bit of heaven within it — the
heaven qf obedience. Every day the little company of
Friends met in that ship’s hold together, and ‘ He Him-
self met with us and manifested himself largely unto
us,’ words that have been proved true by many another
company of the Master’s servants afloat upon the
broad watfbrs from that day to this. There they
sat on the wooden benches, with spray breaking
over them, the faithful men and women’’ who were
daring all for the Truth. Only three times in the
whole voyage was the weather so bad that s^torms
394

GdOD SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

prevenPed their assembling together. Much of the
actual navigation of the vessel seems have been
left to th. strange passengers to determine. The
Captain’s narrative continues: ‘Thus it was all the
voyage with the faithful, who were carried far above
stomis and tenioests, that whan the snip went either
to the right hand or to the left, their hanc^ joined
all as one, and did direct her way; so that we have
seen and F%id, “We see the Lord leading our vessel
even as it weic a man leading a Horse by the head ;
we regarding neither latiti de nor longitude, but
kept to our line, which was and is our Leade., Guide,
and Rule.’”

Besides the guidance vouchsafed to the Friends
as a group, sonic of them had special intimations
given to them.

ne sea was i ly figure.’ says Robert Fowler, ‘for
if anything got up within, the sea without rose up
against me, and then the Hoods clapped their hands,
of which in time I took notice and told Humphrey
Norton.’ *

, In^his ac.-ount TIum[)hrcy Norton always seems
to hear voices d ’reeling their course, while Robert
Fowler generally ‘sees figures ’-^sights tj^at teach
him what to do. Guidance may come in dilferent
ways to different people, but it does come surely to
those who seek for it.

The \n ward Voice spoke to Robert howler also
when they were in mid Atlantic after the^ had been
at sea some two weeks :

‘We saVanother great sbipmaking up to usw’hich

* The meaninfj seems to be that whenever fear or niisgivinp^
came to Fowler's r:enrt, the sea also h<‘canK; stormy; while his
spirit itmained trustful, the sea was likewise cali^.

395

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAfNTS

did appear far off to be a^ frigate, and made her sign
for us to come to them, which was to me a great
cross, we being to windward of them ; and it was said

“go speak to him, the CROSS IS sure; did I EVER
FAIL THEE THEREIN?” And unto Others there ap-
peared no danger in it, so that we did, and it proved
a tradeshian of London, by whom we writ back.’

The hardest test of their faith came some three
weeks later, when after five weeks at sfta they had
still accomplished* only 300 leagues, scarcely a third
part of their voyage, and their destination still
seemed hopelessly distant. The strong faith of Hum-
phrey Norton carried them all over this trial. ‘He
(Humphrey Norton) falling into communion with
God, told me that he had received a comfortable
answer, and also that about such a day we should
land in America, which was even so fulfilled. Upon
the last day of the fifth month (July) 1657, we made
land.’ '

This land turned out to be the very part to which
the Friends had most desired to come. The pilot* had
expected to reach quite a different point, butHhe di-
visible guidance of his strange passengers was clear
and un\^avering. «‘Our drawing had been all the
passage to keep to the southward, until the evening
before we made land, and then the word was, “There
is a lion in the way”; unto which we gave obedience,'
and said, “Let them steer northwards untij the day
following.'^’ t

* As the navigating ofliccr of the ship was t|.ien called.

t It is not quite easy at this distance of tinie (o understand
why ‘a lion in the way’ should mean 'go north,’ unless it was
Ixjcause the ‘ drawing’ had been stronj^ly south hitherto, and now
that path was blocked.

396

G(30D ship ‘WOODHOUSE’

Thit must have been anxious day on board
the Woodhouse, Think of the two different clues
that were being followed within that one small boat:
‘he Friends with their clasp^ed hands, seeking and
finding guidance; up on deck the pilot, with his
nautical knowledge, scorfing .ery likeiy at any other
method of progress than the reckoning to ^hich he
was accustomed. As the slow h,ours passed, and no
land appe'ved to break the changeless circle of the
sea, the Friei^ds felt a bli awing* to meet together
long before their usual time. *And it was said that
we may look abT*aad in the evening; and as we sat
waiting upon t ie i>ord, we discovered the land, and
our mouths were opened in prayer and thanksgiving.’

The words are simple is any words could be. But
in spite of the 260 years that scpara^-e that day from
this, Its gladness is still fresh. All voyagers know
the thrill caused by the first sight of land, even in
these days of steamships, when aU arrangements can
be made .nnd carried out with almost clock-like pre-
ci.sion. But in the old lime of sailing ships, when a
cQiitra^y win.^ or a sudden calm might upset tlie
reckoning for clays together, and when there was the
added danger that food or water* might gi^e out, to
seethe longed-for land in sight at last must have been
even more of an event.

To all the Friends on board the Woodhouse this
first sight of America meant a yet deeper blessedness.
It was the outer assurance thatthe invisihib guidance
they were following was reliable. The Friends re-
joiced and*w'ere wholly at rest and thankful. But the
pilot, instead of bcin^, as might have been expected,
convinced at last that there was a wisdojn wiser than

397

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

his own, still resisted. Where some people* see life
with a thread of guidance running through it unmis-
takably, others are always to be found who will say
these things are nothjng but chance and what is
called ‘coincidence/

Such an one was the pilot of the Woodhouse. As
the lan(i^drew nearer, a creek was seen to open out
in it. The Friends were sure that their vessel was
meant to enter there, but again the piiot resisted.
By this time the Friends had learnecj to expect ob-
jections from him, and had learned, too, that it was
best not to argue with him, but to leave him to find
out for himself that their guidance was right. So
they told him to do as he chose, that ‘ both sides
were safe, but going that way would be more trouble
to him.’ When morning dawned ‘he saw, after he
had laid by all the night, the thing fulfilled.’

Into the creek, therefore, in the bright morn^^ng
sunlightthe Woodkouse ctime gaily sailing; not know-
ing where she was, nor whither the creek would lead.
‘Now to lay before you the largeness of the wisdom,
will, and power of (lod, this creek led us in bistwe^n
the Dutch Plantation and Long Island:’ — the very
place that some of the Friends had felt that they
ought to visit, but which it would have been most
difficult to reach had they landed in any other spot.
Thus ‘the Lord God that moved them brought them
to the place appointed, and led us into our way ac-
cording to the word which came unto Christopher
Holder: “You are in the road to Rhode Island.” In
that creek came a shallop to guide us, taking us to
be strangers, we making our way with our boat, and
they spoke English, and informed us, and guided us

398

GdOD SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

along. ^The power of t,he,J.ord fell much upon us,
and an irresistible word came unto us, that the seed
in Americ i shall be as tlie sand of the sea; it was
puhlislied in the ear.> of the brethren, which caused
tears tj break forth with fulness of joy; so that pre-
sently for these plates some prepared themselves,
who were Robert Hodgson, Richard Doudnfty, Sarah
Gibbons, Mary Weathorhead, and Dorothy Waugh,
who the r»xt day were put safely asliorc into the
Dutch plantation; called Saw Anlsterdam.^

‘New Amsterdam, on ai unnamed creek in the
Dutch Piantation,’ sounds an unfamlliai place to
modern ears. ^ et when that same Dutch Plantation
■changed hands a.id became English ‘erritory its new
masters altered the name of its chief town. Nev^
Amsterdam w^s re-ebristened iu honour of the king’s
brother, James, D ike of VV)ik,and became known as
New York, the largest t ity of the future United States
of America.

As to the. unnamed ‘creek’ into which the Wood-
house was led, that was probably the estuary of the
njighty river Hudson. ‘ Here,’ continues Ivobert
Fowler, ‘ we came, and it being the First Day of the
week several came aboard to us«and we l^egan our
work. I was caused to go to the Governor, and
Robert Hodgson with me — he (the Governor) was
moderate both in v ords and actions.’

This .moderation on the Governor’s pait must
have been no small comfort to the n®w arrivals.
Also the laws of the NcwNetherlandColonies, where
they had •unexpectedly landed, were much more
tolerant than those of New England, whither they
were bound. Even yet the perils of the gallant Wood-

399

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

?iouse were not over. Tlje remaining Friends had
now to be taken on to hospitable Rhode Island, the
home of religious liberty, from whence they could
pursue their mission to the persecuting Colonists on
the mainland.

A few days before their arrival at New Amster-
dam, th6 two Roberts (Robert Hodgson and Robert
Fowler) had both had a vision in which they had seen
the Woodhouse in great danger. The df^y following
their interview wiih the Governor, when they were
once more on the sea, ‘ it was fulfilled, there being a
passage between the two lands which is called by the
name of Hell-Gate ; we lay very conveniently for a
pilot, and into that place we came, and into it were
forced, and over it were carried, which I never heard
of any before that were ; there were rocks many on
both sides of us, so that I believe one yard’s length
would have endangered both vessel and goods. ^

Here for the last time the little group of Friends
gathered to give thanks for their safe arrival after their
most wonderful voyage. If any of them were tempted
to think they owed any of their protection and guid-
ance to their own merits and faithfulness, a last vision
that came to Robert P'owler must have chased this
thought out of their minds once for all.

‘ There was a shoal of fish,’ he says, ‘ which pur-
sued our vessel and followed her strangely, and along
close by our rudder.’ The master mariner’s eye had
evidently been following the movements of the fish
throughout the day, as he asked himself: ‘What
are those fish ? I never saw fish act in that way
before. Why do they follow the vessel so steadily?’
Then, in the time of silent waiting upon God^ light
400

GOOD SHIP ‘WOODHOUSE’

Streamed upon this puzzle^m his mind.

*In our meeting it was shewn to me, these fish are
to thee a figure. “Thus doth the prayers of the
churches proceed ic theLor^, for thee and the rest.”*
That was the explanation of the wonderful voyage.
The Woodhouse and her little company had not been
solitary and unprotected, even when the thr#e ‘pretty
great ships * drew off for fear of the Dutch men of war
and left thejn alone.

The prayers of their friends in* England were fol-
lowing tnem across the vast /.tlantic. though unseen
by human eyes, even as those hosts of shii.ing fish,
w hich burrouruled the vessel as she drove her prow
through the clear water, would be unseen to a spect-
ator above its surface. George Fox was praying
for the travellers. William Dewsburv was sure to be
praying for them. Friend Gerard Roberts would be
also much in prayer, since the responsibility of the
voyage was largely on his shoulders. Besides these,
there were the husbands, wives, and little children
of some of the F'riends, the brothers and sisters
otlicrs, all longing foi them to arrive safely and
do iheir Master’s work. Now here came the fish
to assure Robert Fowler that Lhi faith he^believed
was true. Real as the things we can see or touch
or feel seem to us to be, the unseen things are more
real still. Ever after, to those who had crossed the
Atlantic in the good ship Woodhouse^ the assurance
of God’s clear guidance and the answerec^ prayers of
His people must have been the most real of all.

Robert* Fotvler’s story of the marvellous voyage
ends with these words : ‘Surely in our meeting did the
thing ^un through me as oil and bid me nr^uch rejoice.’

2 D* 401

XX.VI. RICHARD
SELLAR AND THE
‘MERCIFUL MAN’

^ To resort to force is to lose faith
in the inner light. War only re-
suits from men taking counsel with
their passion^ instead of waiting
upon God. If one believes^ as Fox
did, that the most powerful element
in human nature is that something
of God which speaks in the con-
science, then to coerce men is clearly
wrong. The only true line ofaf
proach is by patience to reach down
to that divine seed, to appeal to
what is best, because it what is
strongest in man. The Quaker tes-
timony against war is no isolated
outwork of their position : it forms
part of their citadeV — H. G. wood.

• The following narrative we have
thought proper to insert in the very
7Vords of the sufferer, as taken from
his otvn 7nouth. The candid Reader
will easily excuse the simplicity of its
style, and the Plainness of its Fx-
pressions. It is the more like the 7na n,
a7id carries the greater evidence oj
the IIo7i(sty and hitegrity of the Re -
lator, viz. A 71 Account of the Suf-
ferings of Richard Seller of Keitisey,
a Fisherman, who was p7'€st hi
Scarborough-Piers, in the time of
the two last engagements behveen
^Ihe Dutch and English, in the year
1 66 These a7‘€ {says the writer)
the very tvords that proceeded pTiom
him, 7vho sat befo7‘e me weepingl —
BESSE, Sufferhigs of the Quaker si

XX.VI. .RICHARD
SELLAR AND THE
‘MERCIFUL MAN’

A WAY to the Yorkbhire roaSt we must go, and
/-A once more find ourselv es looking up at the
jL ^ headland of Scarborough Cliff, as it

juts out intg the North Sea. Away again in time,
too, to*the year 1665, when George Fox still lay in
prison up at the Castle, with his room full of smoke
on stormy days when the wind ‘ drove in rain
forcibly,’ while the water came all over his bed and
ran about the room till he was forced to skim it up
with a platter.’

Happily there is no storm raging this time.
Our story begins on a still, warm afternoon late in the
summer, when even the prisoner up at the Castle
can hardly help taking some pleasure in the cloud-
less blue sky and shining sea spread out above and
around him.

But# it is r?ot to the Castle we are bound to-day.
We need not climb again the steep, worn stej^s that
lead to the top of the hill. Instead, we must de-
scend an equally narrow flight that leads down, down,
down with (jueertwisVs and turns, till we find ourselves
close to the water’s edge. Even in the fiercest gales
there is shelter here for the red-roofed fishing village
that surrounds the harbour, while on a viarm after-
noon the air is almost oppressively hot. The brown
sails of the*fisHing smacks and the red roofs of the
houses are faithfully reflected in the clear water be-
neath them as in a looking-glass.

40s

A BOOK OF QyAKfi:R SAfNTS

' Outside the door of one of the houses rough
fisherman is seated on a bench, his back against the
house wall, mending his nets. At first sight he looks
almost like an old man, for his hair is grey, though
his body is still strong and active. His hands are
twisted and bear the marks of cruel scars upon them,
but hisf(ice is peaceful, though worn and rugged. He
handles the nets lovingly, as if he were glad to feel
them slipping through his fingers again. Evidently
the nets have not ♦been used for some time, f6r there
are many holes in them, and the mending is a slow
business. As he works the fishern^an sings in a low
voice, not loud enough for the neighbours to hear
but just humming to himself.

Every now and then the door of the house half
opens, and a little girl looks out and asks, * Thou art
really there. Father? truly safe back again The
man looks up, smiling, as he calls back, ‘ Ay, my
maid. Get on with thy work, Margery, and Til get
on with mine.^

‘ Art thou sure thou art safe, Father ? *

He does not answer this question in woijds, but
he raises his voice and sings the next verse of his song
a little more loudly and clearly —

t

‘ Because on Me his love is set,

Deliver him I will,*'

And safely bring him higher yet
Upon My holy hill.’

Later pn, when the nets are mended and the
sun is sinking above the Castle Cliff in a fiery glow,
Margery comes out and sits on heiX' father's knee;
the lads, home from school, gather round and say,

‘ Now then, Master Sellar, tell u% once more the story
406

THE MERCIFHL MAN

of thy a^Dsence lorn us, and about how thou wak
pressed an<^ taken on board the Royal Frince. Tell
us about the capstan and the lashings; ab^t how
they beat thee ; wliTt the carpenter and the boat-
swain's mate did, and how the gunner went down
thr^e times on his bare knee^ on the deck to beg thy
life. Let us hear it all again.' ‘Yes, please do,
Father dear,* chimes in Margery, ‘only leave out
sonieof thejjeatings and the dreadful part, and hurry
on very quickly lo the end of the story about all the
sailors throwing up their caj'S and kuz^aing for Sir
Edward, the mca'iful man.'

The fisheri an umiies and nods. He puts his arm
more tenderly th;^n ever roun d his sin all daughter as
he says, ‘Ay, ay, dear heart, never thou fear.' Then,
drawing Margery closer to him, he begins his tale.
It is a long story The sun has set; the crescent
moon has disappeared; and the stars are stealing out,
one by one, before he has finished. I wish you and
I could listen to that story, don’t you? Well, we can !
Someone who heard it from the fisherman’s own lips
has wiilten it all down for us. He is telling it to us
in his own words to-day, as he told it to those child-
ren in Scarborough village long a^o.

Now and then wc must interrupt him to explain
some of the words he uses, or even alter the form ol
the sentences slightly, in order fully to understand
what it is he is talking about.

But he is telling his own story.

‘My name,’ begins the fisherman, ‘is Richard
Sellar. It wastiuring the war between the Dutch and
English that I was pressed at Scarborough in 1665.'

‘ Pressed ’ mean? that he was forced to go and

407

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

fight against his will. When the country is insdanger
men are obliged to leave their peaceful employments
and learn to be soldiers and sailors, in order, as they
think, to defend their own nation by trying to kill
their enemies. It is something like what people now
call ‘ conscription ^ that Richard Sellar is talking of
when he^speaks of ‘ being pressed.* He means that
a number of men, called a ‘press-crew,* forced him to
go with them to fight in the king’s navy^. for, as the
proverb said, ‘A king’s ship and the gallows' refuse
nobody,*

‘ I was pressed,* Richard continues, ‘ within Scar-
borough Piers, and refusing to go on board the ketch
[or boat] they beat me very sore, and I still refusing,
they hoisted me in with a tackle on board, and they
bunched me with their feet, that I fell backward into
a tub, and was so maimed that they were forced to
swaddle me up with clothes.* i

Richard Sellar could not help himself. Bound,
bruised, and beaten he was carried off in the boat
to be taken to a big fighting ship called the Royal
Prince^ that was waiting for them off the mcwath of
the Thames and needing more sailors to man her
for the war.

The press-crew however had not captured enough
men at Scarborough, so they put’in at another York-
shire port, spelled Burlington then but Bridlington
now. It was that same Burlington or Bridlington
from which Master Robert Fowler had sailed years
before. Was he at home again now, I wonder, work-
ing in his shipyard and remembering*che*wonderful
experiences of the good ship Woodhouse’i Surely
he must have been away on a voyage at this time or
408

tHE MERCIFUL MAN

he wouM if possible have yisited Richard Sellar in
his confinement on the ketch. Happil) at Bridling-
ton there Jso lived two kind women, who, hearing
t^at the ketch had a ‘pressed .Quaker’ on board, sent
Richard Sellar a present of food — green stuff and
eatables that would keep well on a voyage: these
provisions saved his life later on. After thi» stay in
port the ketch sailed on again to the Nore, a big
sand-bank lying near the mouth of the Thames.

‘ And thercj’ Richard goes on K) say^ ‘they haled
me in at a gunport, on bor rd of the ship called
the Royal Princes 'Fhe first day of the third month,
they commanued me to go to work at the cai)stan.
1 refused ; then they commanded me to call of the
steward for my victuals ; which I refused, and told
them that as I was not fn'e lo do the king’s work, I
would not live a, his chruge for victuals. Then
the boatswain’s mate beat me sore, and thrust me
about with the capstan until he w^as weary ; then
the Captain sent for me on the quarter-deck, and
asked me why I refused to fight for the king, and
wby I Infused 'o eat of his victuals ? I told him I w'as
afraid to offend Cod, for my warfare was spiritual,
and therefore I durst not fight .with carnal weap-
ons. Then the Captain lell upon me, and beat me
first with his small cane, then called for his great
cane, and beat me sore, and felled me down to the
deck three or four times, and beat me as long as
his strength continued. Then came on«, Thomas
Horner (which was brought up at Easington), and
said, “I pi^y you, noble Captain, be merciful, for I
know him to be an hjonest and a good man.” Then
said tl\e captain, “He is a Quaker ; I yill beat his

409

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

brains out.’^ Then falling on me again, he#beat me
until he was weary, and then called some to help
him; ‘Tor” said he “I am not able to beat him enough
to make him willing to do the king’s service.”’

There Richard lay, bruised and beaten, on the
deck. Neither the' sailors nor the Captain knew what
to dowi|h him. Presently up came the Commander’s
jester or clown, a man whose business it was to make
the officers laugh. ‘What,’ said he, ‘catj’t you make
that Quaker work? Do you want him to draw ropes for
you and he won’t? Why you are going the wrong
way to work, you fool ! ’

No one else in the whole ship would have dared
to call the Captain ‘You fool 1 ’ No one else could have
done so without being put in chains. But the jester
might do as he liked. His business was to make the
Captain laugh; and at these words he did laugh.
‘Show me the right way to make him work, then,’
said he. ‘That I will gladly,’ answered the jester,
‘ we will have a bet, I will give you one golden guinea
if I cannot make him draw ropes, if you will give me
another if I do compel him to do so.’

‘Marry that I will,’ answered the Captain, and
forthwith the two guineas were thrown down on the
deck, rattling gaily, while all the ship’s company stood
around to watch what should befall.

‘Then the jester called for two seamen and made
them make two ropes fast to the wrists of my arms,
and reeved the ropes through two blocks in the mizen
shrouds on the starboard side, and hoisted me up
aloft, and made the ropes fast to the ^gunwale of the
ship, and I hung some time. Then the jester called
the ship’s company to behold, and bear him witness,
410

THE MERCIFUL MAN

that he^made the Quaker haie the king’s rapes; so
veering the ropes they lowered me half-way down,
then made me fast again. “Now,” said the jester,
“noble Captain, you and the company see that the
Quaker haleth the king's rof)es”; and with that he
commanded them to le fly the lopes loose, when I
fell on the deck. “Nov,” said the jester, “noble
Captain, the wager is won. He haled the ropes to
the deck, and you can hale them no further, nor any
man eke.”

Not a ver/ good joke, was it? It seems to have
pleased the rough sailors since it set them a-laughing.
But it was n ; laughing matter for Rich.aid Sellar
to be set swinging in the air strung up by the wrists,
and then to be bumped down upon deck again, fast
bound and unable to move. The Captain did not
laugh either. The tnought of his lost money made
him feel savage. In a loud, angry voice he called to the
boatswain’s mate and bade him, ‘Take the quakerly
dog away, and put him to the capstan and make him
work.’

Or^ly the jester laughed, and chuckled to him-
self, as he gathered up the golden guineas from the
deck, andslappca his thighs for pleasure as he slipped
them into his pockets.

Meantime the boatswain’s mate was having fine
sport with the ‘Quaker dog,’ as he carried out the
Captain’s orders. Calling the roughest members of
the crew'to help him, they beat poor Ricl^ard cruelly,
and abused him as they dragged him down into the
darkness deck,

‘Then hewent,’says Richard, ‘and sat him down
uponachest lid, andf wentand sat down upon another

411

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

beside him ; then he fell u^on me and beat m|: again;
then called his boy to bring him two lashings and he
lashed my arms to the capstan’s bars and caused the
men to heave the capstan about; and in three or four
times passing about the lashings were loosed, no man
knew how, nor when, nor could they ever be found,
althougl\,they sought them with lighted candles.’

The sailors had tied their prisoner with ropes
to the heavy iron wheel in the stern of the boat
called a capstan ; so that as he moved he would be
obliged to drag it round and thus help to work the
ship. They had made their prisoner as fast as ever
they could. Yet, somehow, here he was free again, and
his bonds had disappeared I The boatswain’s mate
couldn’t understand it, but he was determined to solve
the mystery. He sent for a Bible and made the sail-
ors swear upon it in turn, in that dark, ill-smelling den,
that not one of them had loosed Richard. They all
swore willingly, but even that did not content the mate.
He thought they were lying, and would not let them
go till he had turned out all their pockets, and found
that not one of them contained the missing lashings
that had mysteriously disappeared. Then, at last, even
the rough mate felt afraid. Richard seemed to be in

o c.

his power and defenceless : was he really protected
by Something or Someone strorfger than any cruel
men, the mate wondered?

So he called the sailors round him again, and
spoke to them as follows : * Hear what I shall say
unto you; you see this is a wonderful thing, which is
done by an invisible hand, which loosed him, for
none of you could see his hands loosed, that were so
near him. I suppose this man’ (said he) ‘is called a
412

THE MERCIFUL MAN

Quakeit and for conscieiKe* sake refuseth to act,
therefore I am afflicted^ and do promise before God
and man ihat I will never beat, nor cause to be beaten,
cither Quaker or any other i;)ian that doth refuse, for
conscience’ sake, to fight for the king. And if I do,
I \/ish I may ^cse my right hand.’ That was the
promise of the boatswain’s mate.

Three d<iys later the Admiral of the whole fleet,
Sir Edward Spragg, came on boai*d th^A*q}^a/ Prince
He was a very fine gentlemai. indeed. At once every
one began to teK him the samr story: how they had
pressed a Quaker up at Scarborough in the North;
how the Quaker had refused to worl , and had been
given over to the boatswain’s mate to be flogged; how
the boatswain’s mate had fallen upon him and had
beaten him furiously, hut now^ refused to lay a finger
upon him, saying that he would no longer beat a
Quaker or any other man for conscience’ sake.

‘ Send that boatswain’s mate to me that he may
answer for himself,’ said the Admiral. ‘ Why would
^11 nf)t beat the Quaker?’ he demanded in a terrible
voice, when the tioalswain’s mate was brought before
liim. ‘I have beat him very sore/ the mate|inswered,
* I seized his arm.s to the capstan bars, and forced
them to heave him about, and beat him, and then sat
down; and in thiee or four times of the capstan’s
going about, the lashings were loosed, and he came
and sat down by me; then I called the nfien from the
capstan, and took them sworn, but they all denied
that tlieyfiadloosed him, or knowhow he was loosed;
neither could the lashings ever be found ; therefore
I did and do believe that it was an invisible power

4T3

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

which set him at liberty,* and I did promise before
Qod and the company, that I would never beat a
Quaker again, nor any man else for conscience’ sake.’
The Admiral told the*mate that he must lose both
his cane of office and his place. He willingly yielded
them both. He was also threatened with the loss of
his righf hand. He held it out and said, ‘ Take it
from me if you please.’ His cane was taken from him
and he was displaced; but mercifully hki right hand
was not cut off : that was only a threat

The Commander had now to find some one else
to beat Richard Sellar. So he gave orders to seven
Strong sailors (called yeomen) to beat Richard when-
ever they met him, and to make him work. Beat him
they did, till they were tired; but they could not make
him work or go against his conscience, which forbade
him in any way to help in fighting. Then an eighth
yeoman was called, the strongest of all. The same
order was given to him : ‘ Beat that Quaker as much
as you like whenever you meet him, only see that
you make him work.’ The eighth yeoman promised
gladly in his turn, and said, ‘I’ll make him!’ He
too beat Richard for a whole day and a night, till
he too gijew weary*and asked to be excused. Then
another wonderful thing happened, stranger even
than the disappearance of the lashings. After all
these cruel beatings the Commander ordered Rich-
ard’s clothes to be taken off that he might see the
marks of the blows on his body. ‘ He caused my
clothes to be stript off,’ Richard says, ‘shirt and all,
from my head to my waist downward ; then he took
a view of my body to see what grounds and bruises
I had, but he could find none, — no, not so much
414

THE MERCIFUL MAN

as a blilfe spot on my skin* Then the Commander
was angry with them, for not heating me enough.
Then the Captain answered him and said, “I have
beat him myself as much as would kill an ox,^^ The
jester said he had hung me a great v/hile by the arms
aloft in the shrouds. Ihe inen said they also had
beaten me very sore» but they m ight as well haiie beaten
the main mast. Then said the Commander, “ I will
cause irons, to be laid upon him during the king^s
pleasure and ryine.”' •

A marvellous story 1 Afte ' all these beatings, not
a bruise or a mark to be seen* Probably it is not
possible now tu explain how it happened. Of course
we might believe that Richard was telhng lies all the
time, and that either the sailors did not beat him or
that the bruises did show. But why invent anything
so unlikely? It is easier to believe that he was try-
ing to tell the truth as far as he could, even though
we cannot understand it. Perhaps his heart was so
happy at being allowed to suffer for what he thought
right, that his body really did not feel the cruel beat-
ings, as^it would have done if he had been doing wrong
and had deserved them. Or perhaps there are won-
derful ways, unknown to us until we experience them
for ourselves, in which God will, and can, and does
protect His own true servants who are trying to obey
Him. That is the most comforting explanation. If
ever some one much bigger and stronger than we are
tries to bully us into doing wrong, let us*remember
that God docs not save us from pain and suffering*
always ; bift H*e can save us through the very worst
pain, if only we are Jrue to Him.

Anyhow, though Richard^s beatingjj were over

415

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

for the time, other trouj^les began. He t/as ‘put
in irons,’ heavily loaded with chains, a punishment
usually kept for the worst criminals, such as thieves
and murderers. All thp crew were forbidden to bring
him food and drink even though he was beginning to
be ill with a fever — the result of all the sufferings he
had undergone. Happily there was one kind, brave
man among the crew, the carpenter’s mate. Although
Sir Edward Spragg had said that any onye giving food
to Richard would have to share his punishment, this
good man was not afraid, and did give the prisoner
both food and drink. All this time, Richard had
been living on the provisions that the two kind Friends,
Thomasin Smales and Mary Stringer, had sent him at
Bridlington, having refused to eat the king’s food, as
he could not do the king’s work.

Thankful indeed he must have felt when this
kind carpenter’s mate came and squeezed up against
him among a crowd of sailors, and managed to pass
some meat and drink out of his own pocket and
into Richard’s. His new friend did this so cleverly
that nobody noticed. Pleased with his success, Jie
whispered to Richard, ‘ I’ll bring you some more
every d^ while y^u need food. You needn’t mind
taking things from me, for they are all bought out of
my own money, not the king’s.’

‘What makes thee so good to me?’ whispered
back Richard. He was weakened by fever and all
unused t($ kindness on board the Royal Prince,
Very likely the tears came into his eyes and his voice
trembled as he spoke, though he had borne all his
beatings unmoved. ^

The caia)enter’s mate told him in reply tjiat be-
416

THE MERCrPUL MAN

fore he came on boaid, both Iiis wife and his mother
had made him promise that if any Quakers should
be on the ship he wouM be kind to them. Also, that
quite lately he had had a letter from them asking
aim ‘to remember his p’-Omise, and be kind to
Quakers, if any were on board.’ How mi'ch we should
like to know what put it i*^to the two women’s hearts
to think of such a thing! Were they Quakers them-
selves, or had they Quaker friends? Once mere there
is no answ^ but: ‘God will, and can, and does pro
tect ITi'; own>

Unfortunately this kind man v/as sent away from
the ship to work elsewhere, and for three days
and nights Richard lay in his heavy irons, with no-
thing eitlier lO eat or drink. Some sailors who had
been quarrelling in a drunken brawl on deck were
thrown into prison and chained up beside Richard.
They were sorry tor him and did their best to help
him. They even gave him something to drink when
they were alone, though for his sake they had to pre-
tend that they were trying to hurt and kill him when
any of the officers were present. These rough sailors
{.tetended so well that one lieutenant, who had been
specially cruel to Richard before, now grew alarmed,
and thought the other prisoners feally wouM kill the
Quaker.

He went up to Sir Edward’s cabin and knocked
at the door. ‘Who is there?’ asked the cabin-boy.

‘I,’ said the lieutenant, ‘I w’ant to speak to Sir
Edward.’ When he was admitted he said, ‘If it
please your high ness to remember that there is a poor
Quaker in irons yet, that was laid in two weeks since,
and the other prisoners will kill him for us.’

2 E

417

A BOOK OF Quaker saints

‘We will have a Court Martial/ thought Sir Ed-
ward, ‘and settle this Quaker’s job once for all/

He told the lieutenant to go for the keys and let
Richard out, and to put a flag at the mizen-mast’s
head, and call a council of war, and make all the cap-
tains come from alUthe other ships to try the Quaker.

It was not yet eight o’clock on a Sunday morn-
ing. At^the signal, all the captains of all the other
ships came hurrying on board the Royal Prince^ the
Admiral’s flag-ship. Richard was fetched up from
his prison and brought before this council of war
— or Court Martial as it would be called now. The
Admiral sat in the middle, very grand indeed; beside
him sat the judge of the Court Martial, ‘ who,’ says
Richard, ‘was a papist, being Governor of Dover
Castle, who went to sea on pleasure.’ He probably
looked grander still. Around these two sat the other
naval captains from the other ships. Opposite all
these great people was Quaker Richard, so weakened
by fever and lame from his heavy fetters that he
could not stand, and had to be allowed to sit. The
Commander, to give Richard one more chance,
asked him if he would go aboard another ship,*a
tender with six guns. Richard’s conscience was still
clear that he could have nothing to do with guns or
fighting. He said he would rather stay where he was
and abide his punishment.

What punishment do you think the judge thought
would be suitable for a man who had committed
only the crime of refusing to fight, or to work to help
those who were fighting ? ,

‘The judge said I should be put into a barrel or
cask driven full of nails 7viih their points inward and
418

THE MERCIFUL MAN

$0 rolled^to death \ but the council of war taking it
into consideration, thought it too terrible a death and
toomuchimchristianlike; so they agreed to hang me/
‘Too much unchristianiike’ indeed! The mere
thought of such a punishment makes us shivei. The
Governor of Dover CasHc, who suggested it, was him-
self a. Roman Catholic. ^listory tells how fiercely
the Roman Catholics persecuted the Protestants in
Queen Mary's reign, whenCranroer, Ridley, Latimer,
Hoopel", and many others were ljurnt at the stake
for theii religion. Since then times had changed,
and when the Prcitestants were in power they too hod
often pcrsecut \ the Roman Catholics in iheir turn.
Perhaps someone whom this ‘papist’ judge had loved
very much had been cruel’ y put to death, and per-
haps that was the leason he suggested this savage
punishment for Quaker Richard. ^Ve do not know
how that may be. But we do know that cruelty makes
cruelty, on and on without end. The only real way
to stop it, is to turn right round and follow the other
law, the blessed law, whereby love makes love.

Riciliard Sellar was only a rough, ignorant fisher-
man> but he iiad begun to learn this lesson out of
Christ’s lesson book : and how difficult a lesson it is,
nobody knows who has not tried to carry it*ouL

Richard heard his sentence pronounced, that he
was to be hanged. When he heard that he was being
wrongfully accused of various crimes that he had not
committed, he longed to rise and justj^y himself,
but he could only sit or kneel because he was too
weak to sVanck In vain he tried to rise, and tried
to speak. He could neither move nor say a word.
He could not efven s?iy : ‘I am innocent’ He could

419

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

not even pray to God to help him in his (^’fficulty.
Again he tried to rise, anS then suddenly in his utter
weakness he felt God’s power holding him, and a
Voice said quite distinctly, three times over, in his
heart: ‘be still — be still — be still.’

‘Which Voice, ’"says Richard, ‘I obeyed and was
comforted. Then I believed God would arise. And

ft

when they had done speaking, then God did arise, and
I was filled with the power of God; and mj^ spirit lifted
up above all eartl^ly things; and wonderful strength
was given me to my limbs, and my heart was full of
the power and wisdom of God ; anc} with glad tidings
my mouth was opened, to declare to the people the
things God had made manifest to me. With sweat
running down, and tears trickling from my eyes, I
told them, “The hearts of kings were in the hand of
the Lord ; and so are both yours and mine; and I do
not value what you can do to this body, for I am at
peace with God and all men, and with you my ad-
versaries. For if I might live an hundred and thirty
years longer, I can never die in a better condition :
for the Lord hath satisfied me, that He hath forgiven
me all things in this world; and I am glad through li'is
mercy, that He hath made me willing to suffer for His
name’s sake, and not only so, but I am heartily glad,
and do really rejoice, and with a'^ seal in my heart to
the same.” Then there came a man and laid his
hand upon my shoulder, and said, “Where are all thy
accusers?’’ Then my eyes were opened, and I looked
about me, and they were all gone.’

The Court Martial was over. Evcry,one of the
captains had disappeared. His accusers were gone;
but Richard’s sentence remainid, and was still to be
420

THE MERCIFUL MAN

carne(R)ut on the following morning. One officer, the
same lieutenant who had been cruel to him before,
was still unkind to him and called him ‘a hypocrite
"Quaker,' but many others on Ooard ship did their
best to save him.

First cf all there came up an ancient soldier to
the Admiral on the quarter-deck. He ‘locked down
his knee-strings, and put down his stockings, and
put hisca;;^)4mder his knees, ano begged Sir Edward’s
pardon tbre<j times ’ (this ceenft to liave been the
correct beha%^iour when addressing the Admiral),
and the anci( nt^oldier said, ‘Noble Sir Ed.vard, you
knowthatlhave served His Majesty under you many
yeais, both in this nation and other nations, by the
sea, and you w^ere always a merciful man; therefore
I do entreat you, in all kindness, to be merciful to
this poor man, w!io is condemned to die to-morrow;
and only for denying your order for fear of offending
God, and for conscience’ sake; and we have but one
man on lioard, out of nine hundred and fifty — only
one which doth refuse for conscience’ sake ; and shall
ye tifke his Mfc away? Nay, God forbid! I’or he
hath already declared that, if we take his life away
there shall a judgment appear u^>on somejan board,
wathin eight and forty hours; and to me it hath ap-
peared; therefore I am forced to come upon quarter-
deck before you ; and my spirit is one with his ; there
fore I desire you, in all kindness, to give me the
liberty, when you take his lifeaway,to go^ffon board,
for I shall not be willing to serve His Majesty any
longer on*board of ship; so I do entreat you once more
to be merciful to tljis poor man — so God bless you,
Sir Edward, i have no more to say tc^you.’

Next came up the chief gunner — a more im-

421

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

portant man, for he had been himself a captdn — but
he too ‘loosed down his knee-strings, and did beg
the Admiral’s pardon three times, being on his bare
knees before Sir Edward/

Then Sir Edwpd said, ‘ Arise up, gunner, and
speak.’

Wheisupon the chief gunner answered, ‘If it please
your worship, Sir Edward, we know you are a merci-
ful man, and therefore I entreat you, in all kindness,
to be merciful to *chis poor man, in v^hom there re-
mains something more than flesh and blood ; there-
fore I entreat you, let us not destfoy that which is
alive; neither endeavour to do it; and so God bless
you, Sir Edward. I have no more to say to you.’
Then he too went away.

It was all of no use. Richard had been sentenced
by the Court Martial to be hanged next morning,
and hanged he must be.

Only Sir Edward — pleased perhaps at being told
so often that he was a merciful man, and willing to
show that he had some small idea of what mercy
meant — ‘ gave orders that any that had a mftnd Vo
give me victuals might; and that I might eat and
drink wit,h whom i pleased ; and that none should
molest me that day. Then came the lieutenant and
sat down by me, whilst they were at their worship;
and he would have given me brandy, but I refused.
Then the dinner came up to be served, and several
gave me vidaials to eat, and I did eat freely, and was
kindly entertained that day. Night being come, a
man kindly proffered me his hammoclc to’iie in that
night, because I had lain longini|;ons;and I accepted
of his kindness, and laid me down, and I slept well
422

THE MERCIFUL MAN

that night.’

‘The next morningbeing come, it bei ng the second
day or the week, on which I was to be executed, about
eight o’clock in the morning, the rope being reeved
on the mizen-yard’s arm; and the boy ready to turn
me off ; and boats being come on board with captains
from other ships, that were of the council of war,
who came on purpose to see me executed; I was
therefore galled to come to I e executed. Then, I
coming to theexecution place, th«i Commander asked
the council how their judgment did stand now ? So
most of them did consent-, and some were silent.
Then he de^Ared me freely to speak my mind, if I
had anything to say, before 1 was executed. I told
him I had little at present to speak. So there came
a man, and bid me to go forward to be executed. So
I stepped upon ^he gunwale, to go towards the rope.
The Commander bid rne stop there, if I had any-
thing to say. Then spake the judge and said, “Sir
Edward is a merciiul man, that puts that heretic to
no w'orse death than hanging.”’

'lihe judge, the Governor of Dover Castle, was, as
w^e have heard, a Roman Catholic. Tohim Sir Edward
and Richard Sellar w^ere both ajike heretics, one not
much worse than the other, since both were outside
what he believed* to be the only true Church.* Sir
Edward knew this. Therefore on hearing the word
‘heretic’ he turned sharp round to the judge, ‘What
sayest thou ? ’ Apparently the judge fel^; that he had

* The Roman Catholic gentry used sometimes to alarm their
}^iOtestant*iieignbours with blood-curdling announcements that
the good times of Queen Mary were coming back, and ' faggotts
:>ho!ild bcdccre,.vet’ 'Frcvelyan, England under ikeStuatis,

p. Byj.

423

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

been unwise to speak his (^ndid thoughts, he re-
peated the sentence, leaving out the irritating word
‘ heretic ’ : ‘ I say you are a merciful man that puts
him to no worse death ^han hanging.* Sir Edward
knew that he had not been mistaken in the word his
sharp ears had caught. ‘But,* said he, ‘what is the
other wo^d that thou saidst?* ‘That heretic,* re-
peated the judge. ‘I say,’ said the Commander, ‘he
is more like a Christian than thyself; for tdo believe
thou wouldst hang -me if it were in thy^power.*

‘Then said the Commander to me,* continues Rich-
ard, “‘Come down again, for I will not hurt an hair
of thy head ; for I cannot make one hair grow.** Then
he cried, “Silence all men,** and proclaimed it three
times over, that if any man or men on board of the
ship would come and give evidence that I had done
anything that I deserved death for, I should have it,
provided they were credible persons. But no man
came, neither a mouth opened against me then. So
he cried again, “Silence all men, and hear me speak.**
Then he proclaimed that the Quaker was as free a
man as any on board of the ship was. So the»mer\,
heaved up their hats, and with a loud voice cried,
“God bless Sir Edward, he is a merciful man!** The

r

shrouds and tops and decks being full of men, several
of their hats flew overboard and were lost.*

We will say good-bye to Richard there, with all
the sailors huzzaing round him, throwing up their
caps, and Sir Edward standing by with a pleased
smile, more pleased than ever now, since it was im-
possible for any one to deny that he was a Inerciful,
a most merciful man. The change for Richard him-
self, from beir|g a condemned criminal loaded yvith
424

THE MERCIFUL MAN

chains tcf being a universal fiavourite, must have been
startling indeed, though his troubles were not over
yet. Difficulties surrounded him again when the
actual battles with the Dutch began. But, though
he could not fight, and was therefore in perpetual
danger, he could and did help and heal.

His story tells us how he was able to lave the
whole ship^s company from dertruction more than
once, and h^d more marvellous adventures than
there is time li^re to relaie. He fislls also how the
persecuting lieutenant becan:.e his fast friend, and
eventually helped^him to get his freedom.

For he did icgain his liberty in the end, and was
given a written permission to go hoin - and earn his
living as a fisherman. With this writing in his hand no
press crew would dare to kidnap him again. So back
he came lo Scarbe. rough, to the red-roofed cottage
by the waters edge, to his unmended nets, and to the
little daughter with whom we saw him first. Most
likely at this time Cleorge Fox was still a prisoner in
the Castle. If so, one of the very first things Richard
di(J, w't*may le sure, was to climb the many stone
steps up to the Cattle and seek his friend in his cheer-
less prison. Tiie fire smoke and<the rain vjould be
forgotten by both men as they talked together, and
George Fox’s face would light up as he heard the
story of the lashings iliat disappeared and the beat-
ings that left no bruise. He was not a man who
laughed easily, but doubtless he laughed otice,at any
rate, as he listened to Richard’s story, when he heard
of the huzz&ing sailors whose hats fell off into the
water because they ^^^ere so energetically sure that
‘Sir Ed,ward was a very merciful man.’

425

XXyil. TWO ROBBER
STORIES. WEST AND
EAST

^They were changed men them-^
selves^ before they went out to chaiige
others J — w, penn^ Testimony to
George Fox.

^ But when He comes to reign ^ whose
right it is, then peace and goodwill
^ is unto all men, and no hurt in all
the holy mountain of the Lord is
seen .' — G. fox.

t

^Wouldst thou love one who fiever
died for thee.

Or ever die for one who, had not
' died for theel

And if God dieth not for Alan and
giveth not Himself
Eternally for Man, Alan could not
exist, for Man is Love
As God is Love. Every kindness
to afiother is a little death
In the Divine Image, nor can man
exist but by brotherhood.'

w. BLAKE, ^Jerusalem.'

^England is as a family of pro-
phets which must spread over all
nations, as a garden of plants, and
* the place where the pearl is found
which must enrich all nations with
the heave?tly treasure, out of iv hick
shall the waters of life flow, and
water all the thirsty ground, and
ocit of which nation and dominion
must go the spiritually weaponed
and armed men, to fight and con-
quer all nations and bring thc 7 n to
the natio 7 t of God.' -^-Epistle of
Skipton General Alee ting, 1660 .

XXVII. TWO

RO’BBER STORIES.
WEST AND EAST

I

LEONARD FELL AND THE
HIGHWAYMAN

I N that same memorable summer of 165.? when
George Fox first v^*shed Swaithmoor Hall and
* bewitched ^ the household there, he also met

and ‘bewitched’ another member of the Fell family.

«

This was one Leona^’d P'eli, a connection of the
J udge, whose home was at Baycliff in the same county
of Lancashire. Thither George Fox came on his tra-
vels shortly after his first visit to Swarthmoor, when
only Margaret Fell and her children were at home,
and before his later visit after Judge Fell's return.

^ I went to Bediffj'says the Journal, ‘where Leon-
ard Fell was convinced, and became a minister of
the everlasting Gospel. Several others were con-
vinced there and came into obedience to truth. Here
ttte people said they could not dispute, and would
fain have put soine others to hold talk with me, but
I bid then-i, “Fear the Lord and not in a-^ight way
hold a talk of the»Lord’s words, but put the things
in practice.’”

Leonard Fell did indeed put his new faith ‘ in
practice.^ He left his home and followed his teacher,
sharing with him many of the perils and dangers of
his journos ip the Service of Truth. Up and down
and across the length and breadth of England the
two men traveUee #ide by side along the hedgeless

429

A BOOK OF Quaker saints

English roads. At first as they went along, J-,eonard
Fell watched George Fox with sharp eyes, in his
dealings with the different people they met on
their journeys, in order to discover how his teacher
would ^put into practice’ the central truth he pro-
claimed : that in every man, however degraded, there
remains some hidden spark of the Divine. But put
it in practice George Fox did, till at length Leonard
Fell, too, learned to look for ‘ that of God within ’
every one he met, learned to depend upon finding it,
and to be able to draw it out in his tuVn.

One day, Leonard was travelling in the ‘Service
of Truth,’’ not in George Fox’s company but alone,
when, as he crossed a desolate moor on horseback,
he heard the thunderous sound of horses’ hoofs com-
ing after liim down the road. Looking round, he be-
held a masked and bearded highwayman, his figure
enveloped in a long flowing cloak, rapidly approach-
ing on a far swifter horse than his own ‘Truth’s pony.’
A moment later, a pistol was drawn from the new-
comer’s belt and pointed full at Leonard’s head.

‘ Another step and you are a dead man ! ^ Your
money or your life, and be quick about it!’ said the
highwayman, as he suddenly pulled the curb and
checked his foam-covered horse. At this challenge,
Leonard obediently pulled up his own steed with his
left hand, while, with his right, he drew out his purse
and handed it over to the robber without a word.

The pis^tol still remained at full cock, pointed
straight at his head. ‘ Your horse next,’ demanded
the stranger. ‘ It is a good beast. Thoygh not as
swift as mine I can find a use for it in my profession.
Dismount; or I fire.’

430

TWO ROBBER* STORIES

In perfect silence Leonard dismounted, making
noobjection, and gave his hdrse’s bridle intothehigh-
wayman’s outstretched hand. Then at last, the threat-
ened pistol was lowered, and replaced in the robber’s
belt. Throwing the folds of hfs long cloak over one
shoulder, and carefully adjusting kis mask, that not
a glimpse of eith^.r face or figure should betray his
identity, he prepared to depart, leaving hi^ victim
penniless and afoot on the wide, desolate moor. But,
though the highwayman had now finished with the
Quaker, the Qimker had by no means finished with
the highwayman. ^

It was now 1. H)nard’‘'turnto be aggressive. Stand-
ing there on the bleak road, alone and unarmed, Leo-
nard Fell raised a warning hand, and solemnly re-
buked his assailant for his evil deeds. At the same
time he admonished liim that it was not yet too late
for him to repent and lead a righteous life, before his
hour for repentance should be forever passed.

This was a most surprising turn of events for the
highwayman. At first he listened silently, too much
astonished to speak. Leonard liowever did not
miftce matters, and before he had finished his ex-
hortation the other man was in a furious rage. Never
before had any of his victims treated him* in this
fashion. Curses, tears, despair, those were all to be
expected in his ‘profession’; but this extraordinary
manwas neither beseeching him for money nor swear-
ing at him' in anger. His victim was mere^ giving a
solemn, yet almost friendly warning to the robber of
his horse and of his gold.

‘ Vou, you cowardly dog!’ blustered Leonard’s
assailant. ‘You let mt rob you of your purse and of

431

A BOOK OF ^QUAKER SAINTS

your steed like a craven! You could not even pluck
up courage to defend yolirself. Yet now, you actually
dare to stand and preach at me, in the middle of the
King’s highway?’

The pistol was oiit again with a flourish. This
time Leonard faced it calmly, making no movement
to defend himself.

‘ I 'i^ould not risk my life to defend either my
money or my horse,’ he answered, looking up straight
at the muzzle with a steady eye, ‘but I Will lay it down
gladly, if by so doing I can save thy'^oul.’

This unexpected answer was altogether too much
for the highwayman. Though his finger was already
on the trigger of the pistol, that trigger was never
pulled. He sat motionless on his horse, staring through
the holes in his mask, down into the eyes of his in-
tended victim, as if he would read his inmost soul.

This astonishing man, whom he had taken for a
coward, was calmly ready and was apparently quite
willing to give his life — his life! — in order to save his
enemy’s soul. The robber had almost forgotten that
he had a soul. His manhood was black and stained

t

now by numberless deeds of violence, by crimes, loo
many remembered and far more forgotten. Yet he
had ontte known what it was to feel tender and white
and innocent. He had certainly possessed a soul
long ago. Did it still exist? Apparently the stranger
was convinced that it must, since he was actually pre-
pared to stake his own life upon its eternal welfare.
Surprising man ! He really cared what became of a
robber’s soul. It was impossible to wjsh to murder or
even to steal from such an one. There could not be
another like him, the wide woi*ld over. He had best
432

TWO ROBBEk STORIES

be allowed to continue on his unique adventure of
discovering soulj, a much more dangerous career
it seemed to be than any mere everyday highway-
man’s ‘proiession.’

As these thoughts passed through the robber’s
mind, his hand sought ♦•he fold? of his cloak, and
then drawing Leonard’s pr^se forth from a deep con-
venient pocket, he returned it to its owner, ^stooping
over him, as he did so, with a low and courtly bow.
Next, puttiifg the horse’s bridle a^sc back into Leo-
nard’s hand, ‘“If you are such a man as that,’ the
highwayman sai^, ‘ I will take neither your money
nor yoin horse ’ ’

A moment later, as if already ashamed of his
impulsive geiicrosity, he set spurs to his horse and
disappeared as swiftly as he had come.

Leonard, meanwhhe, remounting, pursued his
way in safety, with both his horse and his money
once more restored lo him. But more precious, by
far, Lhan either, was the knowledge that his friend’s
teaching had again been proved to be true. In his
own ejyjerience he had discovered that there really and
trtily is an Inward Light that does shine still, even in
the hearts of wicKcd men. Thus was Leonard Fell
in his turn enabled to ‘put these things in practice.’

n

ON- THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM.

A few years later, on anotlierdesolate road, crossing
another loyely«plain, another traveller met with a very
similar adventure thousands of miles away from Eng-
land. Only this traveller’s experiences were much
2 F* 435

A BOOK OF Quaker saints

worse than Leonard FelFs. He was not only attacked
by three robbers instead of one alone, but this hap-
pened amid many other far worse dangers and
narrower escapes. Possibly he even looked back,
in after days, to his encounter with the robbers as
one of the pleasanter parts of his journey!

This traveller’s name was George Robinson, and
he was an'English Quaker and a London youth. He
has left the record of his experiences in a few closely
printed pages at the end of a very small book.*

Hn the year 1 65 7,’ he writes, ^aboufthe beginning
of the seventh month [September], ^as I was waiting
upon the Lord in singleness of heart, His blessed pre-
sence filled me and by the power of His Spirit did
command me to go unto Jerusalem, and further said
to me, “ Thy sufierings shall be great, but I will bear
thee over them all.”

This was no easy journey for anyone in those days,
least of all for a poor man such as George Robinson.
However, he set out obediently, and went by ship to
Leghorn in Italy, There he waited a fortnight until he
could get a passage in another ship bound forSt. Jean
d’Acre, on the coast of Palestine, where centuries be-
fore Richard Coeurde Lion had disembarked with his
CrusaderL Innumerable other pilgrims had landed
there, since Richard’s time, on their way to see the
Holy Places at Jerusalem. George Robinson refused
to call himself a pilgrim, but he had a true pilgrim’s
heart that no difficulties could turn back of dismay.

After slaying for eight days in the house of a French
merchant at Acre, he set sail in yet a thir^ ship that
was bound for Joppa (or Jaffa, as it is called now).
‘ But the wind rising against us,’‘Robinsonsaysin his
434

TWO robber! stories

narrative*^^ we came to an anchor and the next raorn-
mg di vers Turks came aboard, and demanded tribute
of these called Christians in the vessel, which they
paid for fear of sufferings but very unwillingly, their
dem ands being very unreasonaljle, and in like manner
demanded of me, but I refusing to*pay as according
to their demands, they threatened to beat the soles of
my feet with a stick, and one of them world have put
his hand into my pocket, hut the chiefest of them re-
buked him. 5oon after they began take me out of
the vessel to effect their wor’:, but one of the Tuiks
belonging to the vessel speaking to them astney were
taking me ashore, diey let me alone, wherein I saw
the good Hand of God preserving me. . . . After
this, about three or four days we came to Joppa.’

And there at J oppa (or J ufTa), where J onah longago
had embarked for Tarshish, and where Peter on the
house-top bad had his vision of the great white sheet,
our traveller landed. He proceeded straightway on
what he hoi)ed would have been the last stage of his
long journey to Jerusalem.

Alas^he was mistaken. A few jfeasant hours of
tra'\?ci he had, as he passed through the palm groves
that encircle the city of Jaffa, and over the first few
miles of dusty road that cross the famous Plain of
Sharon. Pivfir as he Jburneyed he could sec the tall
tower of Rami el l, built by the Crusaders hundreds of
years before, growing taller as he approached, rising
in the sunset like a rosy finger to beckon hjjm across
the Plains. When he reached it, in the shadow
of the tall To^er*cnemies were lurking. Certain friars
up at Jerusalem, in the hilly country that borders the
plain, had heard from their brethren at Acre that a

435

A BOOK OF ^QUAKER SAINTS

heretic stranger from England was coming pn foot to
visit the Holy City. Now these friars, although they
called themselves Franciscans, were no true followers
of St. Francis, the ‘little poor man of God,^ that gent-
lest saint and truest lover of holy poverty and holy
peace. These Jerilsalem friars had forgotten his teach-
ing, and lived on the gains they made off pilgrims;
therefore, hearing that the heretic stranger from
heretic England was travelling independently and
not on a pilgrin'^age, they feared that lie might spoil
their business at the Holy Shrines. Accordingly they
sent word to their brethren, the friars of Ramleh in
the plain, to waylay him and turn him back as soon
as he had reached the first stage of his journey from
Jaffa on the coast.

‘The friars of Jerusalem,^ says Robinson, ‘ hear-
ing of my coming, gave orders unto some there [at
Ramleh] to stay me, which accordingly was done; for
I was taken and locked up in a room for one night
and part of the day following, and then had liberty to
go into the yard, but as a prisoner; in which time the
Turks showed friendship unto me, one ancipnt man
especially, of great repute, who desired that I mfght
come to his house, which thing being granted, he
courteously entertained me.’

Four or five days later there” came d6wn an Irish
friar from Jerusalem to see the prisoner. At first
he spoke kindly to him, and greeted him as a fellow-
countrym^an, seeing that they both came from the
distant Isles of Britain, set in their silver seas. Pres-
ently it appeared, however, that he had not come out
of friendship, but as a messenger from the friars at
Jerusalem, to insist that the Englishman must make
4.^6

TWO ROBBEll STORIES

five soieiTin promises befoije he could be allowed to
proceed on his journey. He must promise :

‘i. T 1 at he would visit the Holy Places [so the
^riar called them] other pilgrims did

2. And give such sums of money as is the ujual
manner of pilgrims.

3. Wear such a sort of habit as is the mgnncr of
pilgrims.

4. Speak jiothing against the Turks’ laws.

5. And wheji he came 10 jerusaleni not to speak
anything about religion.’

George Robinson had no iiitention of promising
any one of these things — much less ail five. ‘ I stand
in the will of God, and shall do as He bids me,’ was
the only answer he would make, which did not satisfy
the Irish friar. Determined that his journey should
not have been in \ain, and persuasion having proved
useless, he sought to accomplish his object by force.
Taking his prisoner, therefore, he set him on horse-
back, and surrounding him with a number of armed
guards, both horsemen and footmen, whom he had
broil ghit down from Jerusalem for the purpose, he him-
self escorted George Robinson back for the second
timeto Jaffa. Jliere, that very clay, he puthim aboard

a vessel on the point of sailing for Acre. Then, clatter-

■ »

ing back with his guards across the plain of Sharon,
the Irish friar probably assured the Ramleh friars
that they had nothing m(;re to fear from that heretic.

Nodiing could turn George Robinsofi from his
purpose. He was still cjuite sure that his Master
had work for His servant to do in His Own City of
Jerusalem; anc), therefore, to Jerusalem that servant
must go. He was obliged to stay for thr^e weeks at

457

A BOOK OFfQUAKER SAINTS

Acre before he could fiijd a ship to carry him south-
wards again. He lodged at this time at the house of
a kind French merchant called by the curious name
of Surrubi.

‘A man/ Robinson says, ‘that I had never seen
before (that I knew of), who friendly took me into
his hoyse as I was passing along, where I remained
about twenty day§.’

Surrubi was a most courteous host^o his Quaker
visitor. He used to say that he was sure God had
sent him to his house as an honoured guest. ‘For,
he continued, ‘when my own countrymen come to
me, they are little to me, but thee I can willingly re-
ceive.^ ‘The old man would admire the Lord’s doing
in this thing, and he did love me exceedingly much,’
his visitor records gratefully. ‘But the friars had so
far prevailed with the Consul that in twenty days I
could not be received into a vessel for to go to Jer-
usalem, so that I knew not but to have gone by land;
yet it was several days’ journey, and I knew not the
way, not so much as out of the city, besides the great
difficulty there is in going through the coi^ntry ^be-
yond my expression; yet I, not looking at the hard-
ships but at the h<*avenly will of our Lord, I was made
to cry in my heart, “Lord, Thy will be done and not
mine.” And so being prepared to go, and taking leave
of the tender old man, he cried, “I should be destroyed
if I went by land,” and would not let me go.’

The friars had told the Consul that Robinson had
refusedto accept theirconditions, ‘HewillturnTurk,’
they said, ‘ and be a devil.’ But,*thafnks to Sur-
rubi’s kindness and help, aft^r much trouble Rob-
inson was «at length set aboard another ship bound

438

TWO ROBBEf^ STORIES

for th^ south. And thus after bidding a grateful
farewell to his host, he made a quick passage and came
for the second time to Jaffa. Again he set forth on
his last perilous journey. Only a few miles of fertile
plain to cross, only afew hours of climbing up the dim
blue hills that were already in view on the horizon,
and then at last he should reach his goal, the Holy
City.

Even yet it was not to oe ! I his time his troubles
begari before ever he c.-me witlyn sight of the tall
Tower of Ramleh, under whose shadow his enemies,
the friars, w'ere.sS!;iii lying in wait for him. He sayfj
that iiaving iCft the ship and paid his passage, and
having met with many people on the way, they peace-
fully passed him byunt'l he had gone about six miles
out of Jaffa/ But on the long straight road that runs
like a dusty wlr’^e ribbon across the wide parched
Plain of Sharon, he beheld three other figures coming
towards him. Two of th^m rode on the stately white
asses used by travellers of the East. The third, a per-
son of less consequence, followed on foot. As they
cam^neare’", our traveller noticed that they all carried
guns as well as herce-looking daggers stuck in their
swathed girdles. However, arms are no unusual ac-
companiments for a journey in that country, so Rob-
inson still hoped fo be allowed to pass with a peace-
able salutation. Instead of bow’ing themselves in
return, according to the beautiful Oriental custom,
wuth the threefold gesture that signifi^ ‘My head,
my lips, and my heart are all at your service,' and
ihc spoki^n wish that his day might be blessed, tlie
three men rushed at the English wayfarer and threw
themselves upon liim, demanding money. One

439

f

A BOOK OF Quaker saints

man held a gun with its mizzle touching RoUinson’s
breast, another searched his pockets and took out
everything that he could find, while the third held the
asses. ‘I, not resisting them,’ is their victim’s simple
account, ‘stood in the fear of the Lord, who preserved
me, for they passed away, and he that took my things
forth of pockets put them up again, taking nothing
from me, nor did me the least harm. But one of them
took me by the hand and led me on my way in a friendly
manner, and so left me. ... So I, passing through
like dangers through the great love of God, which
caused me to magnify His holy nam>e, came, though
in much weakness of body, to Ramleh.’

At Ramleh worse dangers even than he had met
with on his former visit were awaiting him. Many
more perils and hairbreadth escapes had yet to be
surmounted before he could say that his feet — his
tired feet — had stood ‘within thy gates, O Jerusalem.’
Throughout these later hardships his faith must have
been strengthened by the memory of his encounter
with the robbers, and the victory won by the ever-
lasting power of meekness. i

East or West, the Master’s command can always
be followed: the cornmand not to fight evil with evil,
but to overcome evil with good.

Leonard Fell was given his opportunity of ‘put-
ting in practice the things he had learned’ as he
travelled in England. Our later pilgrim had the
honour of boding tested in the Holy Land itself:

‘In those holy fields,

Over whose acres walked those blessed 'feetf
Which [nineteen] hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter Loss.’

440

i

XXVIII. SILVER
SLrPPERS’: OR A
QUAKERESS AMONG
THE TURKS

^If romance^ like laughter^ is tht
child of sudden glory^ the figure
of Maty Fisher is the most roman-
tic in the early Quaker annals I —

MABEL BRAILSFORD.

‘ Truly Mary Fisher is a precious
hearty and hath been very service-
able herel — henry fell to
Margt. Fell. {Barbadoes^ 1656.)

t

‘ My dear Father . . . Let me not be
forgotten ofthee^ but let thy prayers
be for methat I mayconthj^ue faith-
ful to the end. If any of your Friends
be free to come over^ they^nay be ser-
viceable ; here are many convinced^
and many desire to know the way^
so I rest I — MARY fisher to
George Fox. {Barbadoes., i^ 55 -)

^This English maiden would not
be at rest before she went in purpose
to the great Emperor of the Turks,
and mformed him concernmg the
e?Tors of his religion and the truth
of her si — gerard croese.

I lencefarth, my daughter, do man-
fully and without hesitation those
things which by the ordering of pro-
vidence will be put into thy hands ;
for being now amned with the forti-
tude of the faitlL thou wilt happily
overcome all thy advei'saricsl —

CATHERINE OF ^lENA.

XXVIII. SILVER
SLIPPERS: OR A
QUAKERESS AMONG
THE TURKS. i

T he Grand Turk nad removed hispourtfrom
Constantinople. His beautiful capital city
by^the Golden Horn was in disgrace, on ac-
count of the growing disaffectioniof its populace and
the frequent mutinies of its garrison. For the wars of
Sultan Mahonirt against the RepublicofV:nice were
increasingly unpopular in hiscapital, whosetreasuries
were beiiig drained to furnEh constant relays of fresh
troops for further campaigns. Therefore, before its
citizens became even more bankrunt in their allegi-
ance than they r heady were in their purses, the an-
cient Grand Vizier advised his young master to with-
draw, fora while, the radian'reof his imperial counten-
ance from the now sullen city beside the Golden
Horn, Thus it came about that in the late autumn
of 1^57, Suhan Mahomet, accompanied by his aged
minister, suddenly departed with his wholcCourt, and
took up his residence close outyde the stijl loyal city
of Adrianople. His stale entry into that town was of
surpassing splencfour, since both the Sultan and his
Minister were desirous to impress the citizens, in order
to persuade them to open their purse-strings and re-
veal their hidden hoards. Moreover, tliey were even
more wdshful to dazzle and overawe the Venetian
AmbasSifdoi', Ballerino, who was still kept by them,
unrighteously, a prisoner in the said town.

A full hour or more was the long cavalcade in

443

A BOOK OF Quaker saints

passing over the narrow stcne bridge that spans the
turbid Maritza outside the walls of Adrianople. In
at the great gate, and down the one, long, meander-
ing street of the city, the* imperial procession wound,
moving steadily and easily along, since, an hour or
two previously, hundreds of slaves had filled up the
cavernous holes in the roadway with innumerable
barrel loads of sawdust, in honour of the Sultan’s ar-
rival. Surrounded by multitudes of welcoming citi-
zens, the procession wound its way at length out on
the far side of the city. There, amid a semicircle of
low hills, clothed with chestnut woods, the imperial
encampment of hundreds and thousands of silken
tents shone glistening in the sun.*

In one of the most splendid apartments of the
Sultan’s own most magnificent pavilion, the two chief
personages who presided over this marvellous silken
city might have been seen, deep in conversation, one
sultry evening in June 1658, a few months after the

* A certain Englishman, Paul Rycaut by name, has loft a de-
scription of this encampment as he saw it on his visit a short
time afterwards. ‘The tents were raised on a small hi’I, and
about 2000 in number^ ranged at that time without order, onl^
the Grand Signior’s seemed to be in the midst to overtop all the
rest, well worthy observation, costing (as was reported) 180,000
dollars, richly embroidered in the inside with gold. Within the
walls of this tent {as I may so call them) were all sorts of oOices
belonging to the Seraglio, apartments for the pages, chiosks or
summer-liouses for pleasure, and though 1 could not get admit-
tance to view the innermost rooms and chambers, yet by the out-
ward and more common places of resort I could make a guess
at the richness of the rest, being sumptuous beyond comparison
of any in use ariiong Christian princes. On the right hereof was
pitched the Grand Vizier’s tent, exceeding rich and lofty, and
had I not seen that of the Sultan before it, I should have judged
it the Ix'St that mine eyes had .seen. The ostentation and rich-
ness of this empire being evidenced in nothing more than the
richness of their pavilions, sumptuous beyond the fixed palaces
of princes, erected with marble and mortar.*

444

SILVER SLIPPERS

Court Jiad taken up its residence outside the walls of
Adrianople. Ihey formed a strange contrast: the
boy Sultan and his aged Grand Vizier, Kupriili the
Albanian. Sultan Mahomet, the ‘Grand Seignior’ of
the whole Turkish Empire, was no strong, powerful
man, but a mere stripling who h'kd been scarred and
branded for life, some Sc.y even deformed, by an at-
tack made upon him in earliest infancy by Ris own un-
natural father, the Sultan Ibrab’m. This cruel maniac
(whose onfy excuse was (hat he w^s not in possession
of moie than^alf his wits at the time)had been seized
with a fic of ungovernable rage against the ladies of
his harem, ai I in his luryhad done his best to slay his
own son and heir. Hapoiiy he had not succeeded in
doing more than maim ^he child, and, before long,
imprisonment and the bow-string put an end to his
dangerous career. But though the boy Sultan had
escaped with his life, and had now reached the age
of sixteen years, he never attained to an imposing
presence. He has been described as ‘a monster of
a man, deformed in body and mind, stupid, logger-
hea(^d, cruel, fierce as to his visage,’ though this
Vould seem to be an exaggeration, since another
account speaks of him as ‘youn^ and active, addicted
wholly to the delight ofhuniingand to foll6vv the chase
of fearfuf and flying beasts.’ In order to have more
leisure for these sports he w^as wont to depute all the
business of government to his Grand Vizier, the aged
Albanian chieftain Kupriili, who now, ^bending low
before his young master, so that the hairs of his white
beard almost swept the ground, was having one of his
farewell audiences before departing for the battlefield.
Kupriili, though over eighty years of age, was about

445

9

A BOOK OF qpAKER SAINTS

to face danger for the sakeWthe boy ruler, wholcyinged
luxuriously on his cushions, glittering with jewels,
scented and effeminate, with sidelong, cunning
glances and cruel lips. Yet even Sultan Mahomet,
touched by hi§ aged Minister’s devotion, had been
fired with unwonted* generosity: ‘Ask what you will
and you shall have it, even unto the half of my king-
dom,’ he was exclaiming with true Oriental fervour.

The Grand Vizier again swept the ground with his
long white beard, protesting that he was but a humble
dead dog in his master’s sight, and that one beam from
the imperial eyes was a far more precious reward than
the gold and jewels of the whole universe. Neverthe-
less, the Sultan detected a shade of hesitation in spite
of the magniloquence of this refusal. There was some-
thing the Grand Vizier wished to ask. He must be yet
further encouraged.

‘ Thouhastaboonatheart; Iread it in thy counten-
ance,’ the Sultan continued, ‘ ask and fear not. Be
it my fairest province for thy revenues, my fleetest Arab
for thy stable, my whitest Circassian beauty for thine
own, thou canst demand it at this moment without
fear.’ So saying, as if to prove his words, he waved'
awa) with one hand the Court Executioner who stood
ever at his 'side when he gave audience, ready to a-
venge the smallest slip in etiquette!

The Grand Vizier looked on the ground, still hesi-
tating and troubled, ‘The Joy of the flourishing tree
and the Lor<^ of all Magnificence is my Lord^’ he
answered slowly, ‘ the gift I crave is unworthy of his
bountiful goodness. How shall one small speck of
dust be noticed in the full blaze of the noonday sun?
Yet, in truth, I have promised this mere speck of dust,
446

SILVER SLIPPERS

this whit^ stranger woman, hy the mouth of my in-
terpreter, that I would mention tomy lord’s sublimity

herdeciretobask?rithc sunshineof his rays and ’

* A white, stranger woman,’ interrupted the Sultan
eagerly, ‘desiring to see me? ^Jay, then, the boon is
ofthy giving, not oimire Tellmemore ’ Yetitmritters
not. Were she beauteouL as the crescent at even, or
ill-favoured as a birdef prey, she shall yet be Afelcome
for thy sake, O faithful Servan’^, be she a slave or a
queen. Tell rfie v>niv hei iuameand whenceshecomes.’

Again the Gi^ndVi/iermadeobcisance. Neither
foul nor fair, ncitl^e^’ young nor old, neither slave nor
queen,' he rt lied. ‘Ahe is in truth a marvel, like to
none other these eyes have seen in all their fourscore
years and more. Tender psthedewdrop is her glance;
yet cold as snow is her behaviour. Weak as water in
her outward seeming; yet firm anu strong as ice is
she in strength of inward purpose.’

‘Of what nation is this Wonder?’ enejuired the
Sultan. ‘Shecan scarcely be a follower of thelbophet,
on wliom bepeace, since thou appearest to have gay.ed
upon l^r unveiled countenance?’

Nay, h( rein is the greatest marvel,’ returned the
Minister, Mt is an Englishwoman, come hither in un-
heard fashion over untrodden ways* withatalCto tickle
the ears. She tells niy interpreter (who alone, as yet,
hath spoken with her) that her home is in the cold grey
isle of Britain. That there she dwelt many years in
lowlyestate, beingindecdbutaseiving-maMin a town
called Yorkshire; or so my interpreter understands.
Shesaithth^ttl*ere she heard the voiccof Allah Him-
self, calling hei to be His Minister and Messenger,
heard and strtughtway obeyed. Sayeth, moreover, that

447

A BOOK OF ^QUAKER SAINTS

she hath already traveled in His service b^ond the
utmost western sea, even the new land discovered
by that same Cristofero of Genoa, whose fellow citizens
are at this hour dwelling in our city yonder. Sayeth
that in that far western land she hath been beaten
and imprisoned. Y et, nevertheless, she was forbidden
to restat home until she had carried her message “as
far to the East as to the West,’* or some such words.
That havingthus already visited the land where sleeps
the setting sun of western skies, she craveth now an
audience with the splendid morning 3un, the light of
the whole East; even the Grand Seignior, who is as
the Shade of God Himself.’

‘For what purpose doth she desire an audience?’
enquired the Sultan moodily.

‘Being a mere woman and therefore without skill,
she can use only simple words,’ answered the Grand
Vizier. “‘Tell the Sultan I have something to declare
unto him from the Most High God,” such is her mes-
sage; but who heedethwhat a woman saith? “Never
give ear to the counsels and advices of woman” is the
chiefest word inscribed upon the heart of a wise king,
as I have counselled ever. Yet, this once, seeing that
this maiden is wholly unlike all other women, it might
be well to let her bask in the rays of glory rather than

turn her unsatisfied away .’ The Vizier paused

expectantly. The Sultan remained looking down, toy-
ing with the pearl and turquoise sheath of the dagger
stuck in his girdle. ‘A strange tale,’ he said at last, ‘it
interests me not, although I feel an unknown Power
that forces me to listen to thy words. Her name?’ he
suddenly demanded, lifting his eyes once more to his
Minister’s face.

448

SILVER SLIPPERS

‘She §ives it not,’ returned the other, ‘speaketh of
herselt as but a Messenger, repeating ever, “Not I,
but His Word.’' Yet my interpreter, having caused
enquiries to be made, findeth ];hat those with whom
she lodgeth in the city do speak of her as Maree. Also,
some peasants who founaheivvandering on the moun-
tains when the moon was full, and brought her hither,
speak of her by the name of Miriam. Marvelling at
the whiteness of her skin, they deem she is a witch or
Moon Maiden come hithei byenchaatment. Yet must
she on no acccimt be hurt oi disregarded, they say,
since she is wholly guileless of evil spells, and under
the special proiection of Issa Ben Miriam, seeing
that she beareth his mother’s name.’

The Sultan was growing impatient. ‘A fit tale for
ignorant peasants,’ he declared. ‘ Me it doth not
deceive. This is bat another English vagabond sent
hither by that old jackal Sir Thomas Bendish, their
Ambassador at Constantiriople, to dog my footsteps
even here, and report my doings to him. I will not
see her, were she ten times a witch, since she is of
his nation and surely comes at his behest.’

‘Let my lord slay his servant with his own hands
rather than with his distrust,’ returned the Grand
Vizier. ‘Had she come from Sir Thomas Bendish,
or by his orders, straightway to him she should have
returned. She hath never even seen him, nor so much
as set eyes on our sacred city beside the Golden Horn.
Had she gazed even from a distance upo«i the most
holy Mosque ofthe Sacred Wisdom at Constantinople,
she had sunely^been less utterly astonished at the
sight of even our nob]e Sultan Selim in this city.’ So
saying, the Grand Vizier turned to the entrance of

2G’ 449

A BOOK OFJQUAKER SAINTS

the pavilion, and gazed towards the town of Adrian-
ople lying in the plain beneath, beyond the poplar-
bordered stream of theMaritza. High above all other
buildings rose the great Mosque of Sultan Selim,
with its majestic dome surrounded by slender sky-
piercing minarets. Its 999 windows shone glorious in
the ray^of the setting sun : — Sultan Selim, the glory
of Adrianople, the ruin of the architect who schemed
its wondrous beauty; since he, poor wretch, was exe-
cuted on the completion of the marvel, for this crime
only, that he had placed 999 windows within its walls,
and had missed, though but by one, the miracle of
a full thousand.

The Vizier continued: ‘The woman declares she
hath come hither on Toot, alone and unattended.
Her tale is that she came by the sea from the Isles of
Britain with several companions (filled all of them
with the same desire to behold the face of the Sub-
lime Magnificence) so far as Smyrna ; where, declar-
ing their wish unto the English Consul there, he, like
a wise-hearted man, advised her and her companions
“by all means to forbear.” f

‘They not heeding and still urgently beseeching
him to ^ bring them further on their journey, the
Consul dissembled and used guile. Therefore, the
while he pretended all friendliness and promised
to help forward their enterprise, he in truth set them
instead on board a ship bound for Venice and no
wise for Constantinople, hoping thereby to thwart
their purpose, and to force them to return to their
native land. Some of the company, discovering this
after the ship had set sail, thojigh lamenting, did re-
sign themselves to their fate. Only this maid, strong

450

SILVER SLIPPERS

in soul), would not be tuyiei from her purpose, but
declared constantly that Allah, who had commanded
her to crme, would surely bring her there where He
would have her, even to the presence of the Grand
Seii^nior himself. And lo! even as she spoke, a vio-
lent storm arose, the ship wa^ driven out of her course
and cast upon the Island of Zante with its rugged
peaks ; and there, speaking the shio-master, she
persuaded him to put her ashore on the opposite coast
of thd mainland, even at the plgce known as the
Black Mountain; and then ‘.e she hath made her way
hither on foot, alone, and hath xiitt with nothing but
lovingkindntjs fiom young and old, so she saith, as
the Messenger of the Great King/

The Sultan’s interest was aroused at last: ‘Afoot
— from the Black M ountain ! — incredible ! A woman,
and alone ! It is 7 journey of many hundreds of miles,
and through wild, mountainous country. What proof
hast thou that she speakcth truly ? ^

‘My interpreter hath questioned her closely as to
her travels. His home is in that region, and he is
convijpced that she has indeed seen the places she
cfescribes. Also, she carries ever in her breast a small
sprig of fadeless sea-lavender that groweth only on
the Black Mountain slopes, and sayeth that the sea
captain plucked it* as he set her ashore, telling her
that it was even as iier courage, seeing that it would
never fade/

But the Sultan’s patience was exhausted : ‘I must
see this woman and judge for myself, not merely hear
of her froitt aged lips,’ he exclaimed. ' ‘Witch or woman
— moonbeam or maiden — she shall declare herself
in my presence. Only, since she doth daje to call her-

451

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

self the messenger of tne I^ost High God, l§,t her be
accorded the honours of an Ambassador, that all men
may know that the Sultan dulyregardeth the message
of Allah.’

II

On a divan of sil’lcen cushions in the guest chamber
of a house in the city ot Adrianople, a woman lay,
still and straight. Midnight was long past. Outside,
the hot wind could be heard every now and then, list-
lessly flapping the garved wooden lattice-work shutters
of an overhanging balcony built out on timber props
over the river Maritza, whose turbid waters surged be-
neath with steady plash. Inside, the striped silken cur-
tains were closely drawn. The atmosphere was stufly
and airless, filled with languorous aromatic spices.

Mary Fisher could not sleep: she lay motionless
as the slow hours passed; gazing into the darkness
with wide, unseeing eyes, while she thought of all that
the coming day would bring. The end of her incred-
ible journey was at hand. The Grand Vizier’s word
was pledged. The Grand Turk himself would grant
her an audience before the hour of noon, to receive
her Message from the Great King.

Her Message. Through all the difficulties and

t ^

dangers of her journey, that Message had sustained
her. As she had tramped over steep mountain ranges,
or won a perilous footing in the water-courses of dry
hillside torrents, more like staircases than roads,
thoughts a^d words had often rushed unbidden to
her mind and even to her lips. No difficulties could
daunt her with that Message still undelivered. Many
an evening as she lay down beneath the gnarled trees
of an olive grove, or cooled her aching feet in the

452

SILVER SyPPERS

waters ftf some clear stream, far beyond any bodily
refreshment the intense peace of the Message she was
sent to deliver had quieted the heart of the weary mes-
senger. Only now that her goal was almost reached,
all power of speech or thought s^senicd to be taken
from her. But, though : candle may burn low, may
even fora time be extinguished, it still carri^ securely
vvitnin it the possibility of flam^. Fven so the Messen-
ger of the QrerJt King u.y, hour after hour, in the hot
night silence;, not sleeping, yet smiling: physically
exhausted, yet spiritually unafraid.

The heat within the chamber became at length
unbearably oppressive to one. accustomed, as Mary
Fisher had been for weeks past, to sleeping under
the open sky. Stretching up a thin white arm through
the scented darkness, she managea to unfasten the
silken cords and buttons of the curtain above her, and
to let in a rush of warm night air. It was still too
early for the reviving breeze to spring up that would
herald the approach of dawn : too early for even the
earliest of the orange hawks, that haunted the city in
t|;ie d!iytime, to be awake. Cuddled close in cosy
nests under the wide eaves, their slumbers were dis-
turbed for a moment as Mary, half sitting^p, shook
the piercejd lattice^work of the shutters that formed
the sides of her apartment. Peering through the inter-
stices of fragrant wood, she caught sight of a wan
crescent moon, just appearing behind a group of
chestnut-trees on the opposite hill abovft the river.

The crescent moon! Her guide over sea and
land 1 HaG she not come half round the world to pro-
claim to the followers of that same Crescent, a people
truly fitting in gross darkness, the message of the

453

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

One true Light ?

However long the midnight hours, dawn surely
must be nigh at hand. Before long, that waning Cres-
cent must set and disappear, and the Sun of Right-
eousness arise witl\ healing in His wings.

There lay the slumbering flame of her wondrous
Message^ The right words wherewith to kindle that
flame in the hearts . of others would surely be given
when the right hour came, however upworthy the
Messenger. ' ,

‘As far as the East is from the West,^ the weary
woman thought to herself, while tfle scenes of her
wondrous journey across two hemispheres rushed
back unbidden to her mind — ‘even so far hath He
removed our transgressions from us.’

At that moment, the eagerly awaited breeze of
dawn passed over her hot temples, soothing her
like a friend. Refreshed and strengthened, she lay
down once more, still and straight ; her smooth hair
braided round her head ; her hands crossed calmly
on her breast; in a repose as quiet and austere, even
upon those yielding Oriental cushions, as wh6Ti she
lay upon her hard, narrow pallet bed at home.

Before the first apricot flush of dawn crept up the
eastern sky, Mary Fisher had spnk into, a tranquil
sleep.

Ill

It was broad daylight, though still early, when she
awoke. Odcside, the garden behind the house was
now a rippling sea of rose and scarlet poppies, above
which the orange hawks swooped or dived like copper
anchors, in the crisp morning air. Within doors, a
slave girl stood beside the divan in the guest chamber,
454

SILVER SLIPPERS

clappingjier hands gently tpgither to cause the white
stranger to awake. But the chamber seemed full of
moonlight, although it was broad day. Had the wan-
ing crescentretracedherfootsteps, orleft behindsome
of her chill beams? Mary Fisher rubbed her eyes.
Shemust surely be dreaming stilll I'hen, wakingfully,
she saw that the moon-like radiance came from a heap
of silvery gauze draperies, reflected in the emerald
green tiles of the floor and in the tall narrow mirrors
that separated the lattice-work shuj,ters.

A flowing rol)e of silver tissue was spread out over
an ottoman in th« centre of the floor. The slave girl
at her side was holding up a long veil of shimmering
silver, drawing it through her henna-siainedfinger-tips,
with low, gurgling cries oi delight ; then, stretching out
her arms wide, she spread the veil easily to their full-
est extent. A moment later, drawing a tiny ring from
her finger, she had pressed the veil as easily through
the small golden circlet, so fine were the silken folds.
Then with significant gestures she explained that all
these treasures were for the stranger to wear instead
of her own apparel. With scornful glances from her
dark almond-shaped eyes she pointed disdainfully to
Mary Fisher’s own simple garments, which, at her en-
trance, she had tossed contemptuously into a heap on
the floor.

The plain, grey, Quakeress’s dress did indeed look
simpler than ever amid all the shining Oriental splen-
dour. .Worn too it was, and travel-stainad in places,
though newly washed, carefully mended and all
ready for use. •

Mary Fisher hac^been a woman for many years
before she became a Quakeress. Nay ir^are, she was

455

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

a woman still. It is^ possible that, for atbout the
space of half a minute, she may have looked almost
regretfully at the silver tissue draperies and the gauze
veil.

Half aminute. Not longer! For her, a Messenger
of the Great King, to clothe herself in garments worn
by Turkish women, unbelievers, followers of theFalse
Prophet, was impossible, not to be contemplated
for an instant. With the gentleness of complete de-
cision she dismissed the slave girl, who departed
reluctantly towards the women’s apartments. In
spite of the froth of shining, billowy folds with which
her arms were full, she turned round as she parted
the striped, silken hangings of the doorway and drew
her dusky orange finger-tips in a significant gesture
across her slender brown throat. It was obvious
that the slave girl considered this refusal a very
serious breach of etiquette indeed !

Left alone, Mary Fisher clothed herself, proudly
and yet humbly, in her own simple garments. Her
body bore even yet the marks where cruel scourg-
ings in her youth had furrowed deep scars fror» head
to waist. Years ago thus had English Christians re-
ceived her, when she and her companion had been
whipped until the blood ran down their backs beneath
the market cross at Cambridge. I'he two young girls
were the first of any of the Friends to be thus publicly
scourged. ‘ This is but the beginning of the sufferings
of the people of God,’ Mary had exclaimed prophet-
ically, as the first stroke of the lash fell on her should-
ers, while the assembled multitudes listened in amaze-
ment as the two suffering womer;i went on to pray for
mercy on th^ir persecutors.

456

SILVER SLIPPERS

Whiie here, in Adria»ople, under the Crescent,
the Infidel Turk, to whom she had come in the power
of the very same Message for which she had suffered
in Christian countries, was receiving her with kindness
and respect, offering tc clothe her bodyin sumptuous
apparel, instead of with bloody scars. . . .

Mary Fisher sighed with irrepressible ^ain at the
thought. T.ooking dovm, the marks left by the stocks
were also plainly vi'^ible under the sunburn round her
ankles, as she^tood, bare-footed, (in the crimson rug.
She gladly covered up those tell-tale tokens under her
white stocki'^gSt Bi t where were her shoes? They
seemed to have disappeared. Although the few
strips of worn leather that she had put off the night
before had been scarcely worthy of the name of shoes,
their disappearance might be a grave difficulty.
Had they been taken away in order to force her to ap-
pear bare-footed before the Sultan?

Ah ! — here the slave girl was reappearing. Kneel-
ing down, with a triumphant smile she forced the
Englishwoman’s small, delicate feet — hardened, it is
triie,^3y many hundreds of miles of rough travelling,
but shapely stiil — into a little pair of embroidered
silver slippers. Turkish slippers I^listenin^with silver
thread arid crystal beads, turned up at the pointed
toes, and finished by two silver tufted tassels, that
peeped out incongruously from under the straight
folds of the simple grey frock.

This time Mary Fisher yielded submissively and
made not the slightest resistance. It did not matter
to her in the least how her feet were shod, so long as
they were shed in some way, and she was saved from
havirtg to pay a mark of homage to the I«ifidel. As she

457

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

sat with folded hands ^onr the divan, awaiting the
summons of the Grand Vizier, her deep eyes showed
that her thoughts were far, far away from any Silver
Slippers.

IV

‘ Mahomet, sone of the Emperour, sone of God,
thrice heavenly and thrice known as the renowned
Emperour of the Turks, King of Greece, Macedonia
and Moldavia, King of Samaria and Iluygary, King
of Greater and Lesser Egypt, King of (ill the inhabit-
ants of the Earth and the Earthly Paradise, Guardian
of the Sepulchre of thy God, Lord of the Tree of Life,
Lprd of all theEmperours of the World from the East
even to the West, Grand Persecutor of the Christians
and of all the wicked, the Joy of the flourishing Tree^

. . . and so forth and so on.

The owner of all these high-sounding titles was
hunched up on his cushions in the State Pavilion.
‘On State occasions, among which it is evident that he
included this Quaker audience, he delighted to deck
his unpleasing person in a vest of cloth of gold, lined
with sable of the richest contrasting blackness A-
round him were ranged the servants of the Seraglio
— the highest rank pf lacqueys standing nearest the
royal person, the “Paicks” in their embroidered coats
and caps of beaten gold, and the “Solacks,” adorned
with feathers, and armed with bows and arrows. Be-
hind them were grouped great numbers of eunuchs
and the Coicrt pages, carrying lances. These wore
the peculiar coiffure permitted only to those of the
royal chamber, and above their tresses hung'long caps
embroidered with gold.

‘Mary Fisher was ushered into this brilliant scene

458

SILVER SLIPPERS

wit}} all tke honours asualljkaciorded to an Ambassa-
dor: the Sultan’s dragomans accompanied her and
stood waiting to interpret at the interview. She was
at this time ^bout thirty-five years of age, “a maid . . .
whose intellectual faculties were greatly adorned by
the gravity of her deportment.’' . . . She must have
stood in her simple grey frock, amidst tha^ riot of
gold and scarlet, like a lily in a garden of tulips, her
quiet face shjning in that cruel and lustful place with
the joy of a tasjc accomplished, and the sense of the
presence of God.’ ^

Thus she at the goal of her journey at last,
in the presence of the Grand Turk, she the Messenger
of the Great King. There was the Grand Turk, re-
splendent in his sable and cloth of gold. Opposite
to him stood the gentle Quakeress, in her plain gar-
ment of grey Yorkshire frieze with its spotless deep
collar and close-fitting cap of snowy lawn. Only the
Message was wanting now.

At first no Message came.

The Sultan, thinking that the woman before him
was nsfturally alarmed by such unwonted magnific-
ence, spoke to ner graciously. ‘ He asked by his
interpreters (whereof there werp three \^ith him)

whether it was true what had been told him that she

« •

had something to say to him from the Lord God.
She answered, “Yea.” Then he bade her speak on:
and she i:\ot being forward, weightily pondering what
she might say. “Should he dismiss his«attendants
and let her speak with him in the presence of fewer
listeners ?”1;he*Grand Turk asked her kindly.’ Again
came an uncourtly monosyllabic ‘No,’ followed by

Quaker Wofnen, by Mabel R. Brailsford.

459

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

another baffling silenc!e. •

The executioner, a hook-nosed Kurd with eyes
like a bird of prey, stationed, as always, at the Sultan’s
right hand, began to look at the slight woman in grey
with a professional interest. He felt the edge of his
blade with a skilful thumb and fore-finger, and turned
keen eyp from the slender throat of the Quakeress,
rising above the folds of snowy lawn, to the aged neck
of the Grand Vizier half hidden by hjs long white
beard. There mcght be a double failure in etiquette
to avenge, should the Sultan’s pleasure change and
this unprecedented interview proV'e a failure ! The
executioner smacked his cruel lips with pleasure at
the thought, looking, in his azalea-coloured garment,
like an orange hawk himself, all ready to pounce on
his victims.

Still Silence reigned: — a keen silence more
piercing than the sharpest Damascene blade. It was
piercing its way into one heart already. Not into the
heart of the aged Grand Vizier. The Grand Vizier
was frankly bored, and was, moreover, beginning to
be strangely uneasy at his proUgee^s unaccountable
behaviour. He turned to his interpreter with an en-
quiring /rown. The interpreter looked yet more
uncomfortable — even terrified. Approaching his
master, he began to whisper profound apologies into
his ear, how that he ought to have warned him that
this might happen; the woman had in truth confessed
that she could not tell when the Message would be
sent, nor could she give it a moment before it came :
‘Sayeth indeed that her Teacher in tHis strange faith
hath been known to keep an assembly of over looo
people waiting for a matter of three hours, in order
460

SILVER SLIPPERS

to them from words, ”|not daring to open his

lips without command/

‘ThoL shouldest indeed have mentioned this be-
fore ! Allah grant that this maiden keepeth us not
here so long,’ retorted the Grand Vizier, .with a scowl
of natural 'mpatience, seeing that he was to set forth
on his journey to the battle-field that very day, and
that moments were growing piecious, evefl in the
timeless East. Then, turning to the Sultan, he in
his turn* began to pour out profuse explanations and
apologies. The uncouth, misshapen figure on the cen-
tral divan, however, paid scant heed to his Minister.
Right into the fierce, cruel, passionate heart of Sultan
Mahomet that strange silence was piLreing: piercing
as no words could have done, through the crust
formed by years of self-seeking and sin, piercing, un-
til it found, until quickened, ‘That of God within.^
What happened next must be told in the historian
Sewel’s own words, since he doubtless heard the tale
from the only person who could tell it, Mary Fisher
herself.

‘T4e Grand Turk then bade her speak the word of
th^ Lord to them and not to fear, for they had good
hearts and could hear it. He also charged her to
speak the word she had to say from the Lord, neither
more nor i*ess, for they were willing to hear it, be it
whatit would. Thmshe spokcivhat zvas upon her mindJ"
She never says what it was. The Message, once
delivered, could never be repeated.

‘The Turks hearkened to her with much atten-
tion and gravity until she had done; and then, the
Sultan asking her whether she had anything more to
say? she asked him whether he understood what she

461

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

had said ? He ans were^, “Y es, every word/' and further
said that what she had spoken was truth. Then he de-
sired her to stay in that country, saying that they could
not but respect such an one, as should take so much
pains to coine to them so far as from England with a
message from the Lord God. He also proffered her
a guard to bring her into Constantinople, whither she
intended. But she, not accepting this offer, he told
her it was dangerous travelling, especially for such an
one as she : and wondered that she ha^ passed safe
so far as she had, saying also that it was in respect for
her, and kindness, that he proffered it, and that he
would not for anything she should come to the least
hurt in his dominions. She having no more to say,
the Turks asked her what she thought of their pro-
phet Mahomet? She answered warily that she knew
him not, but Christ the true prophet, the Son of God,
who was the Light of the World, and enlightened
every man coming into the world, Him she knew. And
concerning Mahomet, she said that they might judge
of him to be true or false according to the words and
prophecies he spoke; saying further, “If the wQrd of a
prophet shall come to pass, then shall ye know that
the Lord hath sent that prophet : but if it come not
to pass, t‘nen shall ye know that the Lord never sent
him.’^ The Turks confessed this to be true’, and Mary,
having performed her message, departed from the
camp to Constantinople without a guard, whither she
came without the least hurt or scoff. . . /

V

Thus Mary returned safe to England, where, if
not romance, at any rate solid happiness awaited
462

SILVER SLIPPERS

her in ^he shape of a certai|i William Bayly. He, a
Quaker preacher and master mariner, having been
himseKagreat traveller and having endured repeated
imprisonments in distant countries, could appreciate
the courage and success of fier unprecedented jour-
ney. At anv rate, as the historian quaintly tells us,
he ‘thought her worthy to make him a second wife.*

A few months after her return to Eiigland, but
while she was still unmarriea, Mary Fisher wrote the
following a*ccount of her travels to some of the friends
in whose com*pany she ha 1 suffered imprisonment in
former days before her great journey.

'My dear love salutes you all in one, you have been
often in my remembrance since I departed from you,
and being now returned into England and many trials,
such as I was never tried with before, yet have borne
my testimony fortheLordbefore the King unto whom
I was sent, and he was very noble unto me, and so
were all they that were about him : he and all that
were about him received the word of truth without
contradiction. They do dread the name of God,
maqy of diem, and eyes His messengers. Inhere is a
foyal seed amongst them which in time God will raise.
They are more near truth than many Nations, there
is a love begot in me towards them which is endless,
but this'is my hdpe concerning them, that He who
hath raised me to love them more than many others
will also raise His seed in them unto which my love is.
Nevertheless, though they be called Turks, the seed
of them is near unto God, and their kindness hath in
some measure been shewn towards His servants. After
the word of the Lord was declared unto them, they
would willingly have me to stay in the country, and

463

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINJS

when they could not prevail with me, they {proffered
me a man and a horse to go five days* journey that was
to Constantinople, but I refused a:nd came safe from

them. The English are more bad, most of them, yet
hath a good word gone through them, and some have
received it, but they are few: so I rest with my dear
love to you all — Your dear sister, mary fisher.’

VI

Forty years later, in 1697, an aged 'Jvoman was
yet alive at Charlestown in America; who was still
remembered as the heroine of the famous journey so
many years before. Although twice widowed since

then, and now with children and grandchildren
around her, she was spoken of to the end by her
maiden name. A shipwrecked visitor from the other
side of the Atlantic describes her in his letters home
as ‘one whose name you have heard of, Mary Fisher,
she that spoke to the Grand Turk.’

In the dwelling of that ancient widow, however

old she grew, however many other relics she kept

— remembrances of her two husbands, of children

«•

and grandchildren — between the pages of her weR-
worn Bible was there not always one pressed sprig
of the fadeless sea-lavender that grows on the rocky
shores of the Black Mountain? ^And, somewhere
or other, in the drawer of an inlaid cabinet or work-
table there must have been also one precious packet,
carefully tied up with ribbon and silver paper, in
which some lavourite grandchild, allowed for a treat
to open it, would find, to her indescril^able delight,
a little tasselled pair of Turkish

SILVER SLIPPERS.

464

XXIX.

FIERCE FEATHERS

2 H

• We who were once slayers of one
another do not now fight against
our enemies/— } c/STm martyr,^
A.D, 140 .

* Victory that is gotten by the sword
is a victory slaves get one over the
other; but victory contained by love
is a victory for a kingl — gerrard

WINSTANLEY. 1 649

^HereyouwillcometoloveGod above
ally and your neighbours as year-
selves. ^Nothing hurtSy nQthing
harms y nothingmakes afraid on this
holy mountain ^ — G. fox. •

^My friends that are gone or are
going over to plant and make out-
ward plantations in Americay keep
your own plantations in your hearts
with the spirit and power of God,
that your own vines and lilies be
not hurt .^ — G. fox.

^Take heed of many words y what
reaches to the life settles in the life.
That which cof7ieth from the life and
is received from Gody reaches to the
life and settles others in the life I —
G. FOX.

^An old Indian named Paptm^-
hang appreciated the spirit and
atmosphere of a Friends* meetingy
even if he did not comprehend the
w\yrdSy tellmg the interpreter after-
wards y love to feel where words
come from .*** — a. m. gumSere
{from John Woolmads Journal).

XXIX.

FIERCE FE^ATHERS

T he sunlight lay in patches on the steep roof
of the Meeting-house of Easton Township,
in the County of Saratoga, in the State of
New York. It was a bright summer morning in the
year 1775. The children cl Easton Township liked
their wooden house, although it was made only of
rough-hewn logs, nailed hastily together in order to
provide some sort of thelter lor the worshipping
Friends. They would not, if they could, have ex-
changed iifor one of the more stately Meeting-houses
at home in England, on the other side of the Atlantic.
There, the windows were generally high up in the walls.
English children could see nothi»^g through the panes
but a peep of sky, or the topmost branches of a tall
tree. When they grew tired of looking in the branches
of the tree foran invisible nest that was not there, there
was nothing more to be hoped for, out of those win-
dows. The children's eyes came back inside the room
again^s they watched the slow shadows creep along
tlfbwhite-washed walls, or tried to count the flies upon
the ceiling. But out herein America there was no need
for that. The new Meeting-house of Easton tad nearly
as many possibilities as the new world outside. To
begin with, its logs did not fit quite close together. If
a boy or girl happened to be sitting in the corner seat,
he or she could often see, through a chiijk, right out
into the woods. For the untamed wilderness still
stretched awa!y on all sides round the newly-cleared
settlement^ of Eastog.

Moreover, there were no glass windq,ws in the log

467

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

house as yet, only open^sp^ces provided witl^ wooden
shutters that could be closed, if necessary, during a
summer storm. Another larger, open space at one end
of the building would be closed by a door when the
next cold weather came. At present the summer air
met no hindrance as it blew in softly, laden with the
fragrant scents of the flowers and pine-trees, stirring
the children’s hair as it lightly passed. Every now and
then a drowsy bee would come blundering in by mis-
take, and after bi^zzing about for some**time‘ among
the assembled Friends, he would make his perilous
way out again through one of the chinks between the
logs. The children, as they sat in Meeting, always
hoped that a butterfly might also find its way in, some
fine day — before the winter came, and before the
window spaces of the new Meeting-house had to be
filled with glass, and a door fastened at the end of the
room to keep out the cold. Especially on a mid-week
Meeting like to-day, they often found it difficult to
* think Meeting thoughts ’ in the silence, or even to
attend to what was being said, so busy were they,
watching for the entrance of that long desired butterfly.

For children thought about very much the satne
kind of things, and had very much the same kind of
difficulties in Meeting, then as now; even though the
place was far away, and it is more than a hufidred years
since that sunny morning in Easton Township, when
the sunlight lay in patches on the roof.

It was npt only the children who found silent wor-
ship difficult that still summer morning. There were
traces of anxiety on the faces of many F rienjds an d even
on the placid countenances of the Elders in their raised
seats in the gallery. There, at the head of the Meeting,
468

FIERCE FEATHERS

sat Frie»d Zebulon Hoxie^ th|p grandfather of most of
the children who were present. Below him sat his two
sons. Opposite them, their wives and families, and a
springing of other Friends. .The children had never
seen before one of the stranger Friends who sat in the
gallery that day, by their grandfather’s side. They had
heard that hi? name was Robert Nisbet, and that he
had just arrived, after having walked for tv^ro days,
thirt} miles Jhrough the wilderness country to sit with
Friends at New Easton at their giid-wcek Meeting.
The children had no idea why he had come, so they
fixed their eycs*intently on the stranger and stirred
gently in their seats with relief when at last he rose
to speak. Tney had liked his kind, open face as soon
as they saw it. They liked still better the sound of
the rich, clear voice that made it easy for even children
to listen. But they liked the words of his text best of
all : ‘The Belovi^d of the Lord shall dwell in safety by
Him. He shall cover them all the day long.’

Robert Nisbet lingered over the first words of his
message as if they were dear to him. His voice was
full amd mellow, and the words seemed as if they were
part of the rich tide of summer life that flowed around.
He paused a moment, and then went on, J And now,
how shall the Beloved of the Lord be thus in safety
covered? Even as saith the Psalmist, “He shall cover
thee with Hisfeathers and under His wings shalt thou
trust.” Then, changing his tones a little and speak-
ing more lightly, though gravely still, h^ continued :
‘ You have done well, dear Friends, to stay on vali-
antly in y^uf homes, when all your neighbours have
fled; and,therefore^re these messages sent to you by
me. These promises of covering and^f shelter are

469

A BOOK OF QUAKER 5AINTS

truly meant for you. IV^ake them your own nnd you
shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nbr for the
arrow that flieth by day.'

Here the boys and gjrls on the low benchesunder
the gallery looked at one another. Now they knew
what had brought the stranger ! He had come because
he had heard of the danger that threatened the little
clearing of settlers in the woods. For though New
Easton and East Hoosack lay thirty miles apart they
were both links in, the long chain of Quaker Settle-
ments that had been formed to separate the territory
belonging to the Dutch Traders (who dwelt near the
Hudson River) from the English Settlements along
the valley of the Connecticut. In former days disputes
between the Dutch and English Colonists had been
both frequent and fierce, until at length the Govern-
ment had conceived the brilliant idea of establishing
a belt of neutral ground between the disputants, and
peopling it with unwarlike Quakers. The plan worked
well. The Friends, in their settlements strung out over
a long, narrow strip of territory, were on friendly terms
with their Dutch and English neighbours on cither
side. Raids went out of fashion. Peace reigned, an*d
for a time the authorities were well content.

A fiercer contest was now brewing, no longer
between two handfuls of Colonists but between the
inhabitants of two great Continents. For it was just
before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War of
1775. Thep^rtof the country in which Easton Town-
ship was situated was already distressed by visits of
scouting parties from both British afld American
armies, and the American Government, unable to
protect the i^ihabitants, had issued a proclamation
470

FIERCE FEATHERS

directing them to leave the icouiitry. This was the
reason that all the'seattered houses in the neighbour-
hood were deserted, save only the few tenanted by the
handful of Friends.

‘You did well, Friends,* the speaker continued,
‘well roashto be permitted to exercise your own judg-
ment without blame to the authorities, well to say to
them ill all courtesy and charity, |‘Yuu are clear of us
in that you j;iavp warned us ’* — and to stay on in your
dwellings and*to carry out your eccuslomed work.
The report of this your courage and faith hath reached
us in our '■> biding place at East Hoosack, and the Lord
hath charged me to come on foot through the wilder-
ness country these thirty miles, to meet with you to-
day, and to bear to you these two messages from Him,
“The Beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by
Him,” and “He shall cover thee with His feathers all
the day long.”*

The visitor sat down again in his seat. The fur-
rowed line of anxiety in old Zebulon Hoxie*shigh fore-
head smoothed itself away; the eyes of one or two of
the yt)unger women Friends filled with tears. As the
speaker’s voice ceased, little Susannah Hoxie’s head,
which had been drooping low^r and lo^er, finally
found a j-esting-j^lace, and was encircled by her
mother’s arm. Young Mrs. Hoxie drew off her small
daughter’s shady hat, and put it on the seat beside her,
while sbe very gently stroked back the golden curls
from ‘the child’s high forehead. In dting this she
caught a rebuking glance from her elder daughter,
Dinah.

‘ N aughty, naughty Susie, to go to sleep in Meeting, ’
Dinah was thinking; ‘ it is very hot, and I am sleepy

471

A BOOK OF QtJAKEK SAiNTS

too, but / don’t go to #lee^. I do wish a 15utterfly
would come in at the window just for once — or a
bird, a little bird with blue, and red, and pink, and
yellow feathers. I liked H^rhat that stranger Friend said
about being ‘covered with feathers all the day long.’
I wish I was all covered with feathers like a little bird.

I wish th^re were feathers in Meeting, or anywhere
close outside.’ She turned in her corner seat and
looked through the slit in the wall — why* ther^ were
feathers close outside the wall of the Ivouse, red, and
yellow, and blue, and pink! What could they be?
Very gently Dinah moved her head,*so that her eye,
came closer to the slit. But, when she looked again,
the feathers had mysteriously disappeared — nothing
was to be seen now but a slight trembling of the tree
branches in the wilderness woods at a little distance.

In the meanwhile her brother, Benjamin Hoxie,
on the other low seat opposite the window, was also
thinking of the stranger’s sermon. ‘ He said it was
a valiant thing to do, to stop on here when all the
neighbours have left. I didn’t know Friends could do
valiant things. I thought only soldiers were vailan^.
But if a scouting party really did come — if those Eng-
lish scouts# suddenljMppeared, then even a Quaker
boy might have a chance to shc^w that tie is not
necessarily a coward because he does not fight.’ Ben-
jamin’s eyes strayed also out of the open window. It
was very hot and still in the Meeting-house. Yet
the bushes certainly were trembling. ^ How strange
that there should be a breeze there and not here 1
‘Thou shalt not be afraid for the arrow that flieth by
day,’ he thought to him self. ‘Well, there are no arrows
in this part of the country any longer, now that, they

,472

FIERCE FEATHERS

say all thfe Indians have Idft. H wonder, if I saw an
English gun pointing at meout of those bushes, should
I be afraid?’

But it was gentle Mrs. with her arm still

round her baby dai ghter, who kept the stranger’s
Words longest in her hjart. ‘Shall dwell in safety by
Him, — the Beloved of the Lord, ’she repeatqd to her>
self over and over again, ‘yet ni} husband hath feared
for me,. and we have both been very fearful for the
children. Truly, we have known the terror by night
these lastweeksin these unsettled times^pven though
our duty w. . s plainly to stay here. Why were we so fear-
ful? we of little faith. “The Beloved of the Lord shall
dwell in safety by Him. He shall cover him with His
feathers all the day long.’”

And then, in her turn. Mrs. Hoxie looked up, as
her little daughter had done, and saw the same three
tall feathers creeping above the sill of the open Meet-
ing-house window frame. For just one moment her
heart, that usually beat so calmly under her grey
Quaker robe, seemed to stand absolutely still. She
wt^t white to the lips. Then ‘shall dwell in safety
by Him,’ the words flashed back to her mind. She
looked across to where her husband sat — an urgent
look. He met her eyes, read them, and followed the
direction in which she gazed. Then he, too, saw the
feathers — three, five, seven, nine, sticking up in a
row. Another instant, and a dark-skinned face, an
evil face, appeared beneath them, looking fiver thesill.
The moment most to be dreaded in the lives of all
American settlers — more terrible than any visit from
civilised soldiers — h^dcomesuddenlyupon the little
company of Friend%aIonehere in the wilderness. An

473

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

Indian Chief was staring®in at their Meetftig-house
window, showing histeeth inacruelgrin. Inhis hand
he held a sheaf of arrows, poisoned arrows, only too
ready to fly, and kill, by day.

All the assembled Friends were aware of his pres-
ence by this time, and were watching thewindownow,
though r^ot one of them moved. Mrs. Hoxie glanced
towards herother little daughter, and sawto her great
relief that Dinah too had fallen asleep, her head
against the wooden wall. Dinah and Susie were the
two youngest children in Meeting that morning. The
others were mostly older even than Benjamin, who
was twelve. They were, therefore, far too well-trained
in Quaker stillness to move, for any Indians, until the
Friends at the head of the Meeting should have shaken
hands and given the signal to disperse. Nevertheless,
the hearts of even the elder girls were beating very
fast, Benjamin^s lips were tightly shut, and with eyes
that were unusually bright he followed every move-
ment of the Indian Chief, who, as it seemed in one
bound and without making the slightest noise, had
moved round to the open doorway. ^

There he stood, the naked brown figure, in full
war-paint and feathers, looking with piercing eyes at
each man Friend in turn, as if on^; of therr^ must have
the weapons that he sought. But the Friends were
entirely unarmed. There was not a gun, or a rifle,
or a sword to be found in any of their dwelling-
houses, so \here could not be any in their peaceful
Meeting.

A minute later, a dozen other Rehsklns, equally
terrible, stood beside the Chief, and the bushes in
the distance were quite still. The bushes trembled
474

FIERCE FBATHEka

nb longej. It was Benj^njin who found it hard not
to tremble now, as he saw thirteen sharp arrows taken
from their quiyers by thirteen skinny brown hands,
and their notches held taut to thirteen bow-strings,
all ready to shoot. Yet still the Friends sat on, with-
out stirring, in complete silence.

Only Benjamin, turning his head to look at his
grandfather, saw Zebulon Hoxie, the patriarch of the
Meeting, gazing full at the Chief, who had first ap-
proached. ^he Indian’s flashing^ eyes, under the
matted black eyebrows, gaz'^d back fiercely beneath
his narrow red forehead into the Quaker’s calm blue
eyes beneath the high white brow and snowy hair.
No word was spoken, but in silence two powers were
measured against one another — the power of hate,
and the power of love. For steady friendliness to his
strange visitors was written in every line of Zebulon
Hoxie’s face.

The children never knew how long that steadfast
gaze lasted. But at length, to Benjamin’s utter aston-
ishment, for some unknown reason the Indian’s eyes
fell. IJis head, that he had carried high and haught-
ily^ sank towards his breast. He glanced round the
Meeting-house ?(three times with a scrutiny that no-
thing could escape. Then, signing to his followers,
the thirteefi arrows were noiselessly replaced in thir-
teen quivers, the thirteen bows were laid down and
rested against the wall; many footsteps, lighter than
falling snow, crossed the floor; the India® Chief, un-
armed, sat himself down in the nearest seat, with his
followers i® all their war-paint, but also unarmed,
close round him.

The Meeting did not stop. The Meeting continued

475

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

— one of the strangest Friends’ Meetings, sorely, that
fever was held. The Meeting not only continued, it
increased in solemnity and in power.

Never, while they lived, did any of those present
that day forget that silent Meeting, or the brooding
Presence^ thkt, closer, clearer than the*sunlight, filled
the bright room. • ^

‘Cover thee with His feathers all the day long.’

The Friends sat in their accustomed stillness. But
the Indians sat ipore still than any of them'. They
seemed strangely at home in the silence, these wild
men of the woods. Motionless th&y ^t, as a group
of trees on a windless day, or as a trafiquil piool un-
stirred by the smallest breeze; silent, as if they were
themselves apart of Nature’s own silence rather than
of the family of her unquiet, hunian children.

The slow minutes slipped past. The peace brood*
ed, and grew, and deepened. ‘Am I dreaming?’
Mrs. Hoxie thought to herself more than once, and
then, raising her eyes, she saw the Indians still in the
same place, and knew it was no dream. She saw, too,
that Benjamin’s eyes were riveted to some objects
hanging from the strangers’ waists, that none of fhe
other Friends appeared to see.

At last, when the accustomed hour of worship was
ended, the two Friends at the head of the Meeting
shook hands solemnly. Then, and not till then, did
old Zebulon Hoxie advance to the Indian Chief, and
with signs be invited him and his followers to come
to his house close at hand. With signs they accepted.
The strange procession crossed the suftlit^)ath. Susie
and Dinah, wide awake now, buf kept silent in obedi-
ence to their mother’s whispers, were watching the
476-

FIERCE FEATHERS

feathers ^ith clear, untroubled eyes that knew no fear.
Only Benjamin shivered as if^he were cold.

Wheti the company had arrived at the house, Zeb-
ulon put bread and^cheese on the table, and invited
his unwonted guests to help* themselves. They did
so, thanking hind with signs, as they kriew little or
no English. Roben Nisbet, the visiting Friend,
who could speak and understand French, had a con-
versation with one of the Indians in that language,
indnhis waS what he s?id : ‘We surrounded your
%ouse, meaning to destroy every living person widiin
it Bnttvhen we^aw you sitting with your door open^
and withi^ut weapons of defence^ we had no wish any
longer to hu-t you. Now^, we would fight for you, and
defend you ourselves from all who wish you ill.^
Meanwhile the Chief who had entered first was speak-
ing in broker English to old Zebulon Hoxie, gesticul-
ating to make his meaning clear.

‘ Indian come White Man House, ^ he said, point-
. ing with his finger towards the Settlement, ‘ Indian
want kill white man, one, two, three, six, alii’ and
he cl^tched the tomahawk at his belt with a grue-
sitoe gesture. ‘ Indian come, see White Man sit in
, house; no gun, no arrow, no knife ; all quiet, all still,
worshipping Great Spirit. Greaf Spirit insfde Indian
too;’ he pointed to his breast; ‘then Great Spirit
say: “Indian! No kill them 1” ’ With these words, the
Chief took a white feather from one of his arrows, and
stuck it firmly over the centre of the roof in a pecul-
iar way. ‘With that white feather above your house,’
the French-speaking Indian said to Robert Nisbet,
‘ your settlement is safe. We Indians are your friends
henceforward, and you are ours.’

. 477

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

A moment later and the strange guests h^d all dis*
appeared as noiseless!^ as they had come. But, when
the bushes had ceased to tremble, Benjamin stole to
his mother’s Side. ‘ Mother, did you see^ did you
he whispered- ‘ They were «<?/friendly Indians. They
were the very most savage kind. Did you,’ he shud-
dered, ‘did you, and father, and grandfather, and the
others n6t notice what those things were, hahging from
their waists? They were sca/ps — scalps of men and
women that those Indians had killed,’ and again be
shuddered.

His mother stooped and kissed* him. ‘ Yea, my
son,’ she answered, ‘ I did see. In truth we all saw,

' too well, save only the tender maids, thy sisters, who
know naught of terror or wrong. But thou, my son,
when thou dost remember those human scalps, pray
for the slayers and for the slain. Only for thyself and
for us, have no fear. Remember, rather, the blessing
of that other Benjamin, for whom I named thee.
“The Beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by
Him. He shall cover him all the day long.” ’

XXX. THE THIEF
IN -THE T-ANYARD

^ In the House of Love men do not
curse nor swear f they do notdestroy
nor kill any. They use no outward
swords or spears. They seek to de-
stroy no flesh of man; but it is a
fight of the cross and patience to
the suhdumg of sin I — h^nry
NICHOLAS {circa 1540).

‘ We have to keep in mind the thought
of Christ To us it seems most i rnpor-
tant to stop the evil act,, hold it down
by force ^ or push off its consequences
on. to someofie else: anything^ so long
as we get rid of them from ourselves.
Christ s thought was to change the
evil mind^ 7 vhatever physical con-
sequences action directed to this end,,
might involve . . . . This is the essence
of turning the other cheek, it is the
attitude most likely to convert the
sinner who injures us, whether it
actually does so or not, — we can-
not force him to be converted."* . . .
‘ Those who try this method of love
for the sake of the evildoer must be
prepared to go down, if necessary,
as the front ranks stor??iing a stroiig
r position g'^ down, paying the pHce
of victory for those who coine after
them. This method is not certain
to conquer the evil mind: it is the
most likely way to do it, and it is
that that matters most .* — a . nr A VE

BRA vs HA lY.

XXX. THE THIEF
IN ’THE TANYARD

K NOCK! knock! knock!

The tremulous sound, three times repeated.
di^urbed :he vStillness cf an empty street of
small wooden houscb. The night was very dark, but
the square mass of the tanner's house could just be
discerned, black and solid against the sky. The rays
of a solitary^oii lamp straggled tainlly across the road-
way, and shovfed a man with a large bundle on his
back standing on the doorstep of that house, knock-
ing as if e were afraid of the noise he made.

Knock! knock ! knock! He tried once more, but
with growing timidity and hesitation. Evidently the
inmates of the house were busy, or too far off to hear
the feeble summons. No one answered. The man’s
small stock of courage seemed exhausted. Giving his
heavy bundlea hitch back on tohis shoulder, he slunk
off down the road, to where at a little distance the
small oil lamp high up on the wall beckoned faintly
in the darkness. The all-pervading smell of a tannery
ciose by filled the air.

When he came directly under the lamp, the man
stopped. The light, falling directly upon the package
he carried, showed it to be a bundle of hides all ready
for tanning. Plere he stopped, and drew out a piece
of crumpled newspaper from his pocket. Smoothing
out the creases as carefully as he could, he held it up
towards the lamp, and read once more the strange
words that h^ already knew almost by heart.

This notice was printed in large letters in the ad-
vertisement column: ‘whoever stole a lot of hides
2 I 481

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

on the fifth day of the present month is hereby in-
formed that their owndi has a sincere wish to be his
friend. If poverty tempted him to this false step the
owner will keep the whole transaction secret, and will
gladly put him in the way of obtaining money by
means more* likely to bring him peace of mind.'

‘If poverty tempted him to this false step,' the man
repeated to himself half aloud. ‘ Tanner Savery wraps
up his meaning in fine words, but their sense is plain
enough. If it was being poor that drove ^ man to be-
come a thief and to steal these hides^from the sha-
dow of that dark archway down by tl;te river last Sun-
day night, — suppose it was poverty, well what then?
Friend Savery “will gladly put him in the way of ob-
taining money by means more likely to bring him
peace of mind.” Will he indeed? Can I trust him? Is
it a hoax? I would rather do without the money now,
if only I could get rid of these hides, and of their
smell, that sticks to a man’s nostrils even as sin does
to his memory. But the tanner promises to give me
back peace of mind, does he? Well, that's a fair offer
and worth some risk. I’ll knock once more at his door
and see what happens.'

Stuffing the newspaper into his pocket he walked
quickly up* the road d'gain, back to the square house,
and up the sanded steps. Again he lifted’ the brass
knocker, and again ‘knock ! knock ! knock!' rang out
on the night air. But this time the knocking was less
tremulous, and as it happened the inmates of the
house were crossing the hall on their way to bed and
heard the sound at once. In less than, a rninute the
door opened, and a square brass candlestick, held high
up, threw its light out into the street. The qandle-
482

THE THIEF IN THE TANYARD

Stick held by a tall ngan with greyish white hair,
whom all the town knew as 'banner Savery. Peeping
behii.d his shoulder appeared his wife’s gentle face,
surmounted by the clear mu§lin of o Quakeress’s cap.
The man on the doorstep never lifted up his eyes
to the couple. T’ve brought them back, Mr. Savery,’
he mumbled, too much ashamed even to explain what
he meant by ‘them.’ But William Savery needed no
explp nation. Ever since the hides had mysteriously
disappearea from his tanyard a §iw days before, he
had felt sure ftiat this quarrelsome neighbour of his
must have take* them.

What was that neighbour’s real name? That, no
body knows, or ever will know r.ow. We only know
that whatever it may have been it certainly was not
John Smith, because when, in after years, Tanner
Savery occasionally told thisstory he always called the
stealer of his hides ‘John Smith ’ in order to disguise
iiis identity ; so we will speak of John Smith too. ‘A
ne’er-do-well’ was the character people gave him.
They spoke of him as a man who was his own worst
enen^y, sadly too fond of his glass, and always quar-
relling with his neighbours. Only William Savery re-
fused to believe that any man could be altogether evil,
and he kept a ray of hope in ITis heart for John Smith,
even when his valuable bundle of hides mysteriously
disappeared. It was that ray of hope that had made
him put the advertisement in the paper, though he
knew.it would set the town laughing over ‘those
Quakers and their queer soft ways.’ This evening
the ray of.hc^pe was shining more brightly than ever.
More brightly evei\than the candlelight shone in the
darkness of the night, the hope in hi^ heart shone

483

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

through the brightness of th^ Tanner’s eyes ai}d smile.
Yet he only answered crfeerily,* All right, friend, wait
till I can light a lantern and go to the barn to take
them back with thee/

There was no trace of surprise in his voice. Those
matter-of-fsJct tones" sounded as if it were the most
natural thing in the world to go out to the tanyard at
lo o’clock at night instead of going upstairs to bed.

‘After we have done that,’ he continued, ‘perhaps
thou wilt come in a^nd tell me how this happened; we
‘will see what can be done for thee.’

A lantern, hanging on its hook in the hall, was soon
lighted. • The two men picked their way down the
sanded steps again, then passing under a high creeper-
covered gateway they followed a narrow, flagged path
to the tanyard.

All this time William Savery had not said one word
to his wife — but the ring of happiness in his voice
had made her happy too, and had told her what he
would like her to do during his absence from the
house. Lifting up the bedroom candlestick from the
oak chest on which her husband had set it dowi?, she
hastened to the larder, then to the kitchen, where she
poked up the fire into a bright glow, put a kettle on,
and then went back again through the hall to the par-
lour, to and fro several times. When the two men re-
turned to the house a quarts of an hour later, the
fragrance of hot coffee greeted them. Solid pies and
meat were spread out on the dark oak table. Mrs.
Savery’s pies were famous throughout the town. But
besides pies there were cakes, buns, bread,! and fruit,
— a meal, indeed, to' tempt any hungry mart.

‘I thought some hot supper wquld be good for
484

THE THIEF IN THE TANYARD

thee, neighbour Smith,’ said Mrs. Saveryin her gentle
voice, as she handed him sl)me coffee in one of^ her
favoarite blue willow-pattern cups. But John Smith
did not take the cup from her. Instead, he turned
his back abruptly, went over to the high carved fire-
place^and leaning aown looking iiitothe ^k)wing coals,
said in a choked voice, * It is the first time I ever stole
anything, and I can tell yon I have felt very bad about
It ever since. I don^t know how it is. I am sure I
didn't thiAk once that I should ever come to be a
thief. First 1* took to drinking and then to quarrel-
ling. Since I began to go downhill c'crybody gives
me a kioK; you are the first people who have ofiered*
me a helping hand. My wife is sickly and my children
are starving. You have sent them many a meal, God .
bless you! Yeti stole the hidesfrom you, meaning to
sell them th 3 first chance I could get. But I tell you
the truth when I say, drunkard as I am, it is the first
time I was ever a thief.’

‘ Let it be the last time, my friend,’ replied Wil-
liam Sa very, ‘and the secret shall remain between our-
sel’^s. Thou art still young, and it is within thy power
•to make up for lost time. Promise me that thou
wilt not take any strong drink for a year, and I will
employ thee myself in thCTCSnyard at ^od wages.
Perhap5we may find some employment for thy family
also. The little boy can, at least, pick up stones. But
eat a bit now, and 4rink some hot coffee; perhaps it
will keep thee from craving anything stronger to-
night.’

So Sr^yiug, William Savery advanced, and taking
his guest by the ariti, gently forced him into a chair.
Mrs. Savery pushed the cup towards him, and heaped

485

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

his plate with her excellent^meat-pies. The stranger
took up the cup to driAk, but his hand trembled so
much that he could not put it to his lips. He tried
to swallow a small mouthful of bread, but the effort
nearly choked. him. William Savery, seeing his guest’s
excited state, went on talking in his grave kind voice,
to give him time, and help him to grow calm.

‘ ‘DoubUess thou wilt find it hard to abstain from
drink at first,’ he c6ntinued, ‘ but keep up a brave
heart for the sake of thy wife and childreA, and it will
soon become easy. Whenever thou hast need of coffee
tell my wife, Mary, and she will give ,it thee.’

Mary Savery’s blue eyes shone as she nodded her
head; she did not say a word, for she saw that her
guest was nearly at an end of his composure. Gently
she laid her hand on his rough sleeve as if to try to
calm and reassure him. But even her light touch was
more than he could bear at that moment. Pushing
the food and drink away from him untasted, he laid
both his arms on the table, and burying his head, he
wept like a child.

The husband and wife looked at each other. J,Can
I do anything to help him?’ Mary’s eyes asked hefr
husband in silence. ‘Leave him alone for a little; he
will be better when this fit of tears is over,’ his wise
glance answered back.

William Savery was right. The burst of weeping
relieved John Smith’s over-wrought feelings. Be-
sides, he reajly was almost faint with hunger. In a
few moments, when the coffee w^as Actually held to
his lips, he found he could drink it^right„dowm to
the bottom of the cup. As if by piagic, the cup was
filled up again, and then, very quickly, the meat-
486

THE THIEF IN THETANYARD

pies too began to disappear.

At each mouthful the miin grew calmer. It was
an entirely different John Smith who took leave of
his kind friends an hour later. Again they followed
him to the door. ‘Try to do well, John, and thou
wilt always hnd a fiiend in me,' William Savery said,
as they parted. Mary Savery added no words — she
was never a woman given to much talk. • Only she
slipped her fingers into he^ guest's hand with a touch
that said sftcnti)’, ‘idre thee friend,^

The next dayjohn Smith entered the tan yard, not
this time s1inl<^ng in as a thief in the darkness, but
introduced by the master himself as an engaged work- .
man. For many years ho remained with his employer,
a sober, honest, and faithful servant, respected by
others and respecting himself. The secret of the first
visit was kept. William and Mary Savery never
alluded to it, and John Smith certainly did not, though
the memory of it never left him and altered all the rest
of his life.

Long years after John Smith was dead, William
Savery, in telling the story, always omitted the man's
name. That is why he has to be called John Smith,
because no one knows now, no one ever will know,
what his real name may hare^en. ‘ Bul^’ as William
Savery ifsed to say when he was prevailed on to tell
the stor), ‘the thing to know and remember is that
it is possible to overcome Evil with Good.’

XXXI. HOW

A FRENCH NOBLE
BECAME A. FRIEND

Sentences from ^No Cross, No Crown, ^

by WILLIAM PENN, *

‘ Come, Reader, hearken to me a-
while; I seek thy salvation; that
is my plot; thou wilt forgive me I

‘ Thou, like the inn of old, hast been
full of guests; thy affections have
< entertained other lovers ; there has
been no room for thy Saviour in thy
soul . . . hut his love is after dhee
still, 6 >’ his holy invitation con-
tinues to save thee I

Receive his leaven, Cr it will change
thee; his medicine and it will cure
thee; he is as infallible as free ; with-
out money and with certainty, . . .
Yield up the body, soul spirit to
Him that maketh all things new:
new heavens new earth, new love,
new joy, nm peace, new works, a
new life Sp conversation. . /

‘ The inward, steady righteousness
of Jesus is another thing than all
the contrived devotion of poor super-
stitious man. . . . True worship is
an inwar work; the soul must be
touched and raised in its heavenly
desires by the heavenly 'Spirit. . '. .

So that souls of true worshippers
see God: and this they wait, they
pant, they thirst forh

‘ ^ Prship is the supreme aciofmaiPs
life:

XXXI. HOW

A fTRENCH’ NOBLE
BECAME A. FRIEND

N OW we come to a Saint wfto had k life so full
of adventures that a book twice as big as this
one would be needed to contain tlte stories
that might be told about him alone.

Unlike arty of the other ‘ Quaker Saints ’ in this
book, he was birth a Frenchman and came of
noble family. Uis name was Etienne de Crellet.
He was burn nearly a century after the death of
George Fox; but he probably did not knovf that
such a person had evei existed, never even heard
Fox’s name, until long after he was grown up. If Eti-
enne de Grehei, the gay young nobleman of the
French court, had been told that his story would ever
be written in a book cf ‘ Quaker Saints ’ he would,
most likely, have raised his dark eyebrows and have
looked extremely surprised.

^ Q?i’est-Le qtie c'est alors^ Quakhrl Quel

dr^le de mot 1 Jc 'tie suis pas Quaktre^ moiT he might
have answered, with a disdainful shrug of his high,
narrow, aristocratic French sTWtflders. Yerthere he is
after all !

Etienne de Grellct was born at Limoges in F ranee,
in the year 1773. His childhood was passed in the
stormy years when the cloud was gathering that was
to burst a littje later in the full fury of the French
Revolutiori. His father, Gabriel de Grellet, a wealthy
merchant ot Limoges, was a great friend and coun-

491

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

sellor of Louis XVI. and ^arie Antoinette. As a re-
ward for having introd^lced into the country the manu-
facture of finer porcelain than had ever before been
made in France he was ennobled by the king, whom
he often used to attend in his private chapel. Limoges
china is still celebrated all over the world; and at that
time the most celebrated of its china-makers was M.
de Grelfet, the king’s friend.

Naturally the sons of this successful merchant
and nobleman were brought up in grea*t luxury. Eti-
enne and his brothers were not sentf to a school, but
had expensive tutors to teach then^ at home. Their
parents wanted their children to be well educated,
honourable, straightforward, generous, and kind; to
possess not only accomplishments but good qualities.
Yet Etienne felt, when he looked back in later days,
that something had been left out in their education'
that was, perhaps, the most important thing of all.

When he was quite a little boy he was taken to
visit one of his aunts who was a nun in a convent near
Limoges. The rules of this convent were so strict
that the nuns might not even see their relatio^ns who
came to visit them. They might only speak to them
from the other side of two iron gratings, between the
bars of wliich a thictcurtainwas hung. The little boy
thought it very strange to be take'n from his beautifulj
home, full of costly furniture, pictures, and hang-
ings, and to be brought into the bare convent cell.
Then he locked up and saw an iron grating, and heard
a voice coming through the folds of a thick curtain
that hung behind it. He could hear the vpice, but he
might never see the face of ihft aunt who spoke to
him. At night at home, as he lay in his comfortable
492

STORY OF A FRENCH NOBLE

bed, he i^sed to think of aunt and the other nuns
‘rising three times in the night fcr prayer in the church,
from the hard boards which formed their couch, even
the luxury of a straw pallet being denied them.’

‘ Which is the real life,’ he used to ask himself, ‘ the
easy comfortable life that goes on round me every day,
or that other, difficult life hidden behind the folds of
the thick curtain?’

ChiM though he was, Etienne felt that his aunt
loved him, Although he had never seen her. This
helped him to teel that, although unseen, God was
loving him too. Ashe grew older he wondered; ‘Per-
haps everything we see here is like the bars of a grat-
ing, or a thick curtain. Perhaps th^re is some one on
the other side who is speaking to us too.’

Etienne was only about five or six years old when
he made the great discovery that god is there,
hidden behind the screen of visible things all round
us. After this, he longed to be able to speak fo God
and to listen to God’s voice, as he was able to listen
to his unseen aunt’s voice speaking to him from be-
hind yie curtain in the convent.

’* No one ever taught him to pray; but presently
he discovered that too for himself. One day, when he
was only six years old, his^or gave him a Latin
lesson to learn that was much too difficult for him.
Etienne took the book up to bis bedroom, and there,
all alone, he read ifover and over and did his very
best to. learn it. But the unfamiliar Latin^ords would
not stay in his memory. At last he closed the book in
despair and viKmt to his bedroom window and looked
out. He g9zed over, the high roofs of the city, away
over the wide plain in which Limoges lay, to the

493

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

distant mountain, blue against the sky. Everything
looked fair and peaceful. As he gazed, the thought
came to him, ‘ God made the plain and the river and
the mountains. God made this whole beautiful world
in which I live. If God can create all these things,
surely He can give 'me memory also.^ He knelt down
at the foot of his bed and prayed, for the first time in
his life, that his Unseen Friend would help him to
master the difficult lesson. Taking up the book again,
he read the hard Latin words once morS, very atten*
tively. This time the words stayed in his memory and
did not fade away. Often afterwards^ he found that if
he prayed all his lessons became easier. He could not,
of course, learn them without effort, but after he had
really prayed earnestly, he found he could remember
things better. Then one day he learned the Lord’s
prayer. Long years after, when he was an old man, he
could still recall the exact spot in his beautiful home
where, ‘as a little boy, he had first learned to say, ‘Our
Father.’ Etienne and his family belonged to the
Roman Catholic Church. On Sundays they went to
the great cathedral of Limoges ; but the service^there
always seemed strange and far away to Etienne.’*^ The
music, the chanting, the Latin words that were said
and sung by bishops^d priests in their gorgeous
robes, did not seem to him to have anything to do
with the quiet Voice that spoke to the boy in the
silence of his own heart.

When Etjenne and his brothers were old enough
they were sent to several differerit colleges and
schools. Their last place of instruction was the

* ‘From myearliest days, ’he writes, ‘therewas that in me that
would not allow me implicitly to believe the various doctrines I
was taught.’

494

STORY OF A FRENCH NOBLE

celebrated College of the Oratorians at Lyons. A-
mong other things, the students of this College were
taught 1 0 move so quietly that fifty or a hundred boys
went up or down the stone steps of the College all
together, without their feet making the least noise.

Etienne tells us in his diary: 'as we were educ-
ated by Roman Catholics and in their principles we
were required to confess once a. month,’ that*is, to tell
a priest whatever they had done that was wrong, and
receive the a^urance ol God’s forgiveness from him.

The priest td whom E.ienne regularly made his
confession was ^.a pious, conscientious man,’ who
treated him with fatherly care. When the boy told
him of his puzzles, and asked how h could be neces-
sary to confess to an} man, since God alone could
forgive sins, he received a kind, helpful answer. ‘Yet,’
he says, ‘my reasoning faculties brought me to the
root of the matter; from created objects to the
Creator — from time to eternity.’ After he wa« con-
firmed at College he hoped that his heart would be
changed and made different; but he found that he
was stijl me -.ch the same as before. Before leaving the
Cd!lege he and the other students who were also
departing received the Sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper at Mass. Ihis was td^Etienne a vefy solemn
time. But, lie says, 5s soon as he was out in the world
again, the remembrance of it faded away. He settled
that he had no use for religion in his life, and deter-
mined to live for pleasure and happiness alone. ‘I
sought after happiness,’ his diary says, ‘in the world’s
delights. I.wtnt in pursuit of it from one party of
pleasure to^ another^ but I did not find it, and I
wondered that the name of pleasure could be given

495

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

to anything of that kind.’^

In his dissipated life after leaving College, he gave
up saying his prayers, and gradually he lost his belief
that GOD WAS THERE, He read unbelieving books,
which said that God did not exist, and that the Un-
seen world' was ohly a delusion and a dream. For
a time Etienne gave himself up to doubt and denial
as well aS to dissipation. He was in this restless state
when the French Revolution broke out and caught
him, likea butterfly in a thunderstorm. K ew questions
surged over him. ‘ If there is a G6d after all, why
should He allow these horrors to happen?’ But no
answer came. Or perhaps he had forgotten how to
listen.

‘Towards the close of 1 791,’ he writes, ‘I left my
dear Father’s house, andbade him, as it proved, a last-
ing farewell, having never seen him since.’ At this
time, Etienne accompanied his brothers and many
other nobles into Germany, to join the French Princes
who were endeavouring to bring about a counter-
revolution and restore the king, Louis XVI.

On this dangerous journey the young men mpt with
many narrow escapes. Courage came naturallyno
Etienne. ‘ I was not the least moved,’ he writes in his
diary, ‘when surrouhTtt^d by people and soldiers, who
lavished their abuses upon us, and threatened to hang
me to the lamp-post. I coolly stood by, my hands in
my pockets, being provided with three pairs of pistols,
two of which were double-barrelled. I concluded to

f

wait to see what they would do, and resolved, after
destroying as many of them as I couW, fo take my
own life with the last.’

Happily the necessity for extreme courses did not
496

STORY OF A FRENCH NOBLE

arise. He was, he says, ‘mercifully preserved,' and
no Wolenf hands were laid upqn him, though he and
his com panions suffered a short detention, after which
they succeeded in safely joining the French Princes
and their adherents at the city of Coblentz on the
Rhine. Heie Etieniie spent thefoHowingVinter and
spring surrounded, he tells us, by many temptations.

‘I was fond of solitude, 'continues the di?>ry, ‘and
had many tetired walks through the woods and over
the hl\\s^ I delighted to v isit the deserted hermitages,
whicii formerly abounded r n the R mne. I envied the
situation of such Jiermits, letired from the world, and
sheltered fioin its many temptations; for I thought it
impossible for me to live a life of pu rity while continu-
ing among my associates. I looked forward wishfully
to the time when I could thus retire; but I saw also
that, unless I could leave behind me my earthly-mind-
edness, my pride, vanity, and every carnal propensity,
an outward solitude could afford me no sheltesi

‘Our army entered into France the forepart of the
summer of 1792, accompanied by the Austrians and
Prussians. I was in the King's Horse Guards, which
coi^sisted mostly of the nobility. We endured great
hardships, for many weeks sleeping on the bare
ground, in the open air, and \^fe''sometim^ in want
of provisioBis. But t?liat word honour so inflamed us,
thatlmarvel how contentedly we bore our privations.’

Towards the approach of winter, owing to various
political changes, the Princes' army was^obliged to
retire from France, and soon after was disbanded.
‘Etienne had bj;en present at several engagements; he
had seen many fallingabouthim, stricken by the shafts
of death; he had stood in battle array, facing the enemy
2 K . 497

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

ready for the conflict; but, being in a reserve corps,
he was preserved fronj actually shedding biood, hav-
ing never fought with the sword, or fired a gun.’

In after years, he was thankful to remember that
although he had been perfectly willing to take life, he
had never actually done so in his soldier days. After
the retreat of the French army, he and his brothers
set out far Amsterdam. On the way, however, they
were made prisoners of war, and condemned to be
shot. ‘ The execution of the sentence wts each mom-
ent expected, when some sudden commotion in the
hostile army gave them an opportunity to make their
escape.’ Their lives thus having been spared a second
time they reached Holland in safety.

The young men were puzzled what to do next. They
could not bear to leave their beloved parents at distant
Limoges, and yet it was impossible to reach them or
to help them in any way. France was a dangerous
place Jor people with a ‘de’ in their names in those
days, and for young men of military age most danger
ous of all. Finally, Etienne and his brother Joseph
settled to go to South America. ‘Through the kind
assistance of a republican General, a friend of .the
family, they obtained a passage on board a ship bound
for Demerara, whei<> 4 hey arrived in the First month
of 1793, after a voyage of about forty days.’

Unfortunately this long voyage had not taken
them away from scenes of violence. The Revolution
in France was terrible, but the horrors of slavery in
South America were, if possible, even worse. The New
World seemed no less full of tragedy^ than the Old.
Etienne saw there husbands and wives, parents and
children, brothers and sisters torn apart, most cruelly
498

STORY OF A FRENCH NOBLE

beaten, often sold like cattle to tyrafinical masters,
never to*see each other’s fac^ again.

i^mid such scenes Etienne grew more than ever
full of despairing thoughts, more than ever inclined
to believe that there could not be a God rulinga world
where these evils were allowed t»^go unpunished.

‘Such was the impression made upon Etienne by
the scenes of cruelty and anguish he witnessed, that,
many years after, tne sound of a whip in the street
would. chiiithis blood, m the remembrance of the
agony of the poor slave'' ; and he tbit convinced that
there was no excess of wickedness and malice which
a slave-h^ldei, or driver, might not be guilty of.’

Etienne and Joseph stayed ir Demerara for more
than two years. In the spring of 1 7 9 5 they left South
America and settled in Long Island near New York.
There, they m ade friends with a certain Colonel Corsa,
a man who had served in the British army, and who
had a daughter who spok e F rench. As the two brothers
at this lime knew no English it was a great cheer to
them in their loneliness to be able to visit at this
hospitable house. One day Colonel Corsa happened
tc^speak of William Penn. Etienne had alreadyheard
of the Quaker statesman, George Fox’s friend, and
when the young girl said sift) -possessed linn’s writ-
ings Etienne asked to borrow them. He took back
to his lodgings with him a large folio book, intend-
ing, with the help of a dictionary, to translate it in
order to improve his English. Great was his dis-
appointment when he found that the book contained
nothing about politics or statesmanship. It was
about religion: and at this time Etienne thought that
religion wks all a humbug and delusion. Therefore

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

he shut up the book and put it away, though he did
not return it to its ownpr. * One evening, alSout this
time, as he was walking in the fields alone, suddenly
the Voice he had heard in his childhood spoke to him
once more, close by and terribly clear: ‘eternity,
ETERNITY, ETERNITY^ These three words, he says,
‘reached my very soul, — my whole ‘man shook, — it
brought me, like Saul, to the ground/ The sinfulness
and carelessness of- his last few years passed before
him. He cried out, ‘If there is no God, doubtless
there is a hell.’ <,

His soul was almost in hell already, for hell is de-
spair, and Etienne was very nearly despairing at that
moment. Only one way out remained, the way of
prayer, the little mossy pathway that he used to tread
when he was a child, but that he had not trodden, now,
for many years. Tangled, mossy, and overgrown that
path was now, but it still led out from the dark wood
of life where Etienne had almost lost his way and his
hope.

Etienne took that way. With his whole heart he
prayed for mercy and for deliverance from the sin
and horror that oppressed him. Whennoanswe/caipe
at once he did not stop praying, but continued day and
night, pray^Ing, prayi Agfor mercy. Perhaps he scarcely
knew to whom his prayer was addressed; ,but it was
none the less a real prayer.

He expected that the answer to it would come in
some startling form that he could recognise the first
minute and say; ‘There! Now God-is answering my
prayer ! ’

Instead, the answer came far more simply than he
had expected. God often seems to choose to answer
500

STORY OF A FRENCH NOBLE

prayers ^in such ‘a gently natural fashion, that His
children need to watch verytcarefully lest they take
His most radiant messengers, His most wonderful
messages, almoot as a matter of cou’-se. Only if they
recognise God’s Love in all that comes, planning how
things shall happen, they can see 'His hand arranging
even the tiniest details of their lives, fitting them all
in, and making things woik out right. '!"hen they
unde^-stand how truly wonderful' His answers are.

The anstver to Etienne’s prayer came through no-
thing more ext^ordinary than that same old folio book
which be had borrowed from his friend Miss.Corsa,
and had put away, thinking it too dull to translate.
He took it oat again, and opened upon a part called
‘No Cross, No Crown.' ‘1 proceeded,’ he says, ‘to
read it wi^ the help of my dictic iary, having to look
for the meaning of nearly every word.’

When he had finished, he read it straight through
again. ‘I had never met with anything of the kind
before,’ and all the time he was reading the Voice in-
side his heart kept on saying, ‘Yes, Yes, Yes, that is
true y

* ‘I now withdrew from company, and spent most
of my time in retirement, and in silent waiting upon
God. I began to read the 5ible, with the aid of my
dictionary, for I had none thenin French. Iwasmuch
of a stranger to the inspired records. I had not even
seen them before that I remember; what I had heard
of any part of their contents, was only (Jetached por-
tions in Prayer iBooks.

‘Whilst tkefallowgroundof my heart was thus pre-
paring, my biothej; and myself, being one day at
Colonel Corsa’s, heard that a Meeting yas appointed

501 ^

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

to be held next day in the Friends’ Meetir^g-house,
by two Englishwomen, to which we were invited. The
Friends were Deborah Darby and Rebecca Young.
The sight of them brought solemn feelings over me;
but I soon forgot all things around me; for, in an in-
ward silent frame of mind, seeking for the Divine pres-
ence, I was favoured to find in me, what I had so
long, and* with so many tears, sought for without me.
My brother, who sat beside me, and to whom the
silence, in which the forepart of the meeting was held,
was irksome, repeatedly whispered to^me, “Let us go
away.” But I felt the Lord’s power in such a manner,
that a 'secret joy filled me, in that I had found Him
after whom my soul had longed. I was as one nailed
to my seat. Shortly after, one or two men Friends in
the ministry spoke, but I could understan||very little
of what they said. After them Deborah Darby and
Rebecca Young spoke also ; but I was so gathered in
the terflple of my heart before God, that I was wholly
absorbed with what was passing there. Thus had the
Lord opened my heart to seek Him where He is to be
found.

‘My brother and myself were invited to dine in the
company of these Friends, at Colonel Corsa’s. There
was a religious opportunity after dinner, in which
several communications were macie. I coiild hardly
understand a word of what was said, but, as Deborah
Darby began to address my brother and myself, it
seemed as if the Lord opened my outward ear, and
my heart. She seemed like one reading the pages of
my heart, with clearness describing how itihad been,
and how it was with me. O what sweetness did I then
feel 1 It was indeed a memorable day. I was like one
502

STORY OF A FRENCH NOBLE

introduced into a new world; the creation, and all
things around me, bore a di^rent aspect, my heart

glowed with love to all O how can the extent of

the Lord’s love, mercy, pity, and tender compassion
be fathomed!’

Aft'^r th^^ visit of the t-wo Friehds had made tin’s
change in his life Etiejine decided to give up his
French name and title, and to be no longef Etienne
de Grellet, the French nobleman; but plain Stephen
Grelletr, the fbacher of languages. Later on, he was to
become Stepheft Grellet the Quaker preacher; but the
time for thathackiot yet come. After Debui ah Darby’s
visit he went regularly to the Friends’ Meetings in
Long Island, but the) were held f'.>r the most part in
complete silence, and sad to say not one of the Friends
ever spoke to him after wards. Ke missed their friend-
liness all the more because the people he was lodging
with could not bear his attending Quaker Meetings,
and tried to make himgiveupgoingtosuch unfashion-
able assemblies. His brother, Joseph, also could not
understand what had come to him, and both Joseph
and t^ie ‘odging-house people teased poor Stephen
al^outhis Quaker leanings, till he, who had been brave
enough w^hen his life was in danger, was a coward be-
fore their mockery. He did not want to gife up going
to his dear Meeting, but he hated to be ridiculed. At
first he tried to give up Meeting, but this disobedience
gave him, he says, ‘a feeling of misery.’ When the next
Sunday came he tried another plan. He went to the
Meeting-house by roundabout ways through fields
and over f^n^es, ashamed to be seen by any one on
the road.’, When l^e reached the Meeting-house by
these by-lanes, the door was closed. No Meeting was

503

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

to be held there that day. ^The Friends hajjpened to
have gone to another iplace. Stephen, therefore, sat
down, ‘in a retired place and in a very tried state,’
to think the whole question over again, with much
humility. He decided that henceforth, come what
might, he would riot be a coward; and he kept his
resolution. The next Sunday he went to Meeting
‘ though *it rained hard and I had about three miles
to walk.’ Henceforward he attended Meeting regu-
larly, and at last his brother ceased repfoachi’ng him
for his Quakerism, and one Sunday He actually came
to Meeting too. This time Joseph also enjoyed the
silence and followed the worship. ‘From that time he
attended meetings diligently, and was a great comfort
to me. But, during all that period,’ Stephen continues,
‘ we had no intercourse with any of the members of
the religious Society of Friends.’ These Friends still
took no notice of the two strangers. They seem to
have been Friends only in name.

About this time bad news came from France. ‘My
dear mother wrote to me that the granaries we had at
our country seat had been secured by the revolfition-
ary party, as well as every article of food in our toi^n
house. My mother and my younger brother were only
allowed thb scanty pittance of a peck of mouldy horse-
beans per week. My dear father wa^ shut ujl in prison,
with an equally scanty allowance. But it was before
I was acquainted with the sufferings of my beloved
parents, that the consideration of the general scarcity
prevailing in the country led me to think how wrong
it was for me to wear powder on my head, fhe ground
of which I knew to be pride.’ ]l^e gave up powder
from this timp. It would not be much of a sacrifice

504

STORY OF A FRENCH NOBLE

nowadays, but it was a very real one then, when
powder was supposed to be Jhe distinguishing mark
of a gentleman. I he two brothers were now obliged
to learn to support themselves. All their estates in
France had been seized. ^ Our means began to be
low, and yeX our feelings for the* sufferings in which
our beloved parents might be involved, caused us to
forget ourselves, strangers in a strange coa»try, and to
forward them a few hundred dollars we had yet left’

It was nt) easy matter to find employment. The
brothers went nn to Ne’ ^ York, and there at last the
Friends were kind: Friend" in deed and not in name
only. They found a situation for Joseph in New York
itself, and arranged for Stephen to go to Philadelphia,
where he was more likely to find work.

And at Philadelphia the Friends were, if possible,
even kinder to him than the Friends at New York.
They were spiritual fathers and mothers to him, he
says, and seemed to know exactly what he wa^feeling.
‘ They had but little to say in words, but I often felt
that my spirit was refreshed and strengthened in their
company.’ At Philadelphia, he had many offers of
tempting employment, but he decided to continue as
a teacher of languages in a school He gave his whole
mind to his school work wlTile He was at i^, and out of
school hems wandered about entirely care free. But
although he was a teacher of languages and although
the English of his Journals is scrupulously careful, it
has often a slight foreign stiffness and formality. He
was often afraid in his early years of niaicing mista es
and not spqfiking quite correctly. 'I'here is a story
that long pterwards, when he was in England and was
taking his leave of some schoolgirls, he wished to say

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

to them that he hoped they might be preserved safely.
But in the agitation of hi^departure he chose tlie wrong
words. His parting injunction, therefore, never faded
from the girls’ memory: ‘Mydear youngFriends,may
the Lord pickle you, His* dear little muttons.^

If, even ks an Old man, Stephen was liable to
fall into such pitfalls as this, it is easy to understand
that in hi^'earlier years the fear of making mistakes
must have been a real terror to him, especially when
he thought of speaking in Meeting. Vei*y soon after
he became a Friend he felt, with great dread, that
the beautiful, comforting messages, that refreshed
his own soul were meant to be shared with others.
Months, if not years, of struggle followed, before he
could rise in his place in Meeting and obey this in-
ward prompting. But directly he did so, his fears
of making a mistake, or being laughed at, vanished
utterly away. After agony, came joy. ‘The Lord
shewed»me how He is mouth, wisdom and utterance
to His true and faithful ministers; that it is from Him
alone that they are to communicate to the people, and
also the when and the howl At that first Meedng,
after Stephen had given his message and sat doww
again, several Friends, whose blessing he specially
valued, als6 spoke and skid how thankful they were
for his words. Among those present that day was that
same William Savery, who, in the last story, had a
bundle of valuable hides stolen from his tanyard, and
punished the thief, when he came to return the hides,
by loading him with kindness and giving him a good
situation. ^

Certainly William Savery would not tell the story
of ‘the man who was not John Smith’ to Stephen
506

STORY OF A FRENCH NOBLE

Grellet on that particular day; for Stephen was so filled
with the thankful wonder that follows obedience, that
he had no thoaghtfor outside things. ‘For some days
after this act of dedication,* he says, ‘my peace flowed
as a river.’ In the autumn of this year (i 7 9 6), Stephen
Grellet, the French nobleman, *becam*e a Friend.
About two years later, he was acknowledged as a
Minister by the Society.

‘In those days,’ he writes, ‘m'y mind dwelt much
on the natftre of the hope of redemption through
Jesus Christ. . ? . I felt thit the best testimony I could
bear was to evkice by my hfe whac He had actually
done for me.’

Henceforth Stephen’s life was spent in trying to
make known to others the joy that had overflowed
his own soul. He did iiidecd ‘put the things that he
had learned In practice,’ as he journeyed over both
Europe and America, time after time, visiting high
and low. His life is one long record of adventures,
of perils surmounted, of hairbreadth escapes, of con-
stant toil and of much plodding, humdrum service too.
His ^lessage brought him into the strangest situations,
a% he gave it fearlessly. He sought an interview with
the Pope at Rome in order to remonstrate with him
about the state of the prisons in the P 5 pal States.
Stephen gave hisinessage with perfect candour, and
afterwards entered into conversation with the Pope.
Finally, he says, ‘As I felt the love of Christ flowing
in my fieart towards him, I particulajly addressed

him The Pope . . . kept his head inclined and

appeared ,te»der, while I thus addressed him, then
rising fropi his sea^ in a kind and respectful manner,
he expressed his desire that “the Lo^;d would bless

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

and protect me wherever I went,” on which I left himd
Not satisfied with tbat, though it seems wonderful
enough, Stephen another time induced the Czar of
all the Russias, Alexander I., to attend Westminster
Meeting. Both these stories are well worth telling.
But there is one story about Stephen, better worth
telling still, and that is how the Voice that guided him
all over th*e world sent him one day ‘preaching to no-
body’ in a lonely forest clearing in the far backwoods
of America.

XXXII. PREACHING
■TO NOBODY

^A// ihe artiiiery in the worlds were
they all discharged together at one ,
clap^ could 710^ 7no7'e deaf the ears
of our bodies tha7i the cla77iourmgs
of desires i?i the soul deaf its ears^
so you see a 7710,71 77iust go into sil-
e7ice or eUe he ca7inot hear God-
speak.^ JOHN EVERARD. I 650 .

iGod forces no7ie,^ for love cannot

co77ipel,^ and God’s service is thc7x-

fore a thvig of coinplete f7'eedo77i,f ..

The thmg which hinders arid has
. . *
always hmdered is that our wills

are different fro77i God’s will. God

never seeks Himself hi His willing

— we do. There is 7io other way to

blessed?iess tha 7 i to lose one’s self will. ’

HA NS DENCK. I 5 2 6 .

'‘The inward C 077 inia 7 id is 7i€i'cr
wanting in the due season to any
duty.’ R. BARCLAY. I 678 .

' I think I can revere idly say that I
ve7y 77 iuch doubt whether.^ since the
Lord by His grace b7vught 771 e into
the faith of His dear Son, I have
ever broken bread or drunk ivine,
evfn in the ordirafy course of life,
without the 7-eme7nh7'afice^ of a?id^
some devout feelhig rega7'ding the
broken body and the blood-sheddifig
of 7}iy dear Loj'd and Saviour. ’ —
STEPHEN GRELLET.

‘ Oiie loving spirit sets another on
fire I AUGUSTINE. ' .

XXXII. PREACHING
TO' NOBODY

S TEPHEN Grellet, after much waiting on the
Lord to shew him H’is will, \;as directed by
the Spirit to take a long joupey into the back-
woods of America, an^ preacii the Gospel to some
woodcutters who were felling forest timbej.’*^

At fii st Stephen did not know, which was the wood
he was mea<\jt to visit Iiaving travelled through hun-
dreds of miles, of forests on his joutnev. So he v/aited
very quietly, h^s heart as still as a clear lake, ready
to reflect r nything God might show him.

Suddenly a picture came. He remembered a
lonely foiest clearing, far away. Workmen's huts were
dotted about here and there, and a big wooden build-
ing rose in the midst of the clearing. All around were
woodcutters, some busy sawing timber, some marking
the tall forest trees, others carting huge logs aqd - piling
them at a little distance. Stephen now remembered
the place well. He remembered, too, the workmen’s
rough faces, and the wild shouts that filled the air as
he had passed by on horseback. He iiad noticed a
faint film of blue smoke curling up frcin the large
building, and he had supp«)sed*that thatimust be the
dining-shanty whjcre the workmen s food was prepared
and Avhere they had their meals. He remembered
having thought to himself, ‘A lonely life and a wild
one P But the place had not leade a deep impression
on his mind, and he had forgotten it aslie journeyed,
in the joy of getting nearer home. Now, suddenly,
that forest clearing, with the huts and the dining-

* T!u American Friend. 28th November 1895.

511

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

shanty and the busy woodmen all round, came back
to him as vividly as a picture in a magic-lantern view,
while a Voice said, distinctly but very gently in his
own heart, so that only hecouldhear, ‘go back there

AND PREACH TO THOSE LONELY MEN.'

Stephen knew q^ite well Whose Voice it was that
was speaking to him, for he had loved and followed
that Voic^for many years. Obedience was easy now.
He said at once, ‘Yes, I will go;' and saying good-
bye to his wife, he left his home, and set> forth, again
into the forest. As he journeyed, a ^ood of happi-
ness came over his soul. The long ride through the
lonely woods, day after day, no longer seemed tedious.
He was absolutely alone, but he never felt the least
bit lonely. It was as if Someone were journeying
with him all the way, the invisible Friend whose
Voice he knew and loved and obeyed.

When at length he drew near the clearing in the
forest, he both trembled and rejoiced, at the thought
of soon being able to deliver his message to the
woodmen. Coming yet nearer, however, he no long-
er saw any blue smoke curling up in a thin spiral be-
tween the straight stems of the forest trees. Neither
did he hear any sound of saws sawing timber, or the
men shouting to theK- hof»ses. The whole place was
silent and deserted. When he reached the , clearing,
nobody was there. Even the huts had gone., He
would have thought he had mistaken the place if the
dining-shanty had not been there, by the edge of a
little trickling stream, just as he remembered it.

Nowhere was there a living soul to be seen.
Evidently all the woodmen had gone away deeper
into the forest to find fresh timber, for the clearing
512

PREACHING TO NOBODY

was much larger and many more trees had been cut
downthanon Stephen’s first vi^it. The neglected look
of the one big wooden hut that remained showed that'
themen had not used it for many days. Weeks might
pass before any of the woodcutters returned.

What v/as Stephen to do? He had no idea in
which direction the woodmen had departed. It was
hopeless to think of tracking them furtha: through
the lonely forest glades. Hr, d the Voice made a mis-
take? ‘Could he have misunderstood the command?
Was the whole ^expedition a failure? Must he return
home with his message still undelivered^ His heart
burned wi.hin him at the thought, and he said, half
aloud, ‘No, no, no!’

There was only one way out of the difficulty, the
same way ^hat had helped him to learn his Latin les-
son years ago v^hen he was a little boy. But it was
no tiny mossy track now, it was a broad, well-marked

road travelleddaily, hourly, throughlongyear*,— this

Prayer way that led his soul to God. Tying up his
horse to the nearest tree, Stephen knelt down on the
carpet of red-brown pine-needles, and put up a word-
less prayer for guidance and help. Then he began

to listen.

Through the windless silence of the fftrest spaces
the Voice came n^ain more clearly than ever, saying :

‘GIV^ YOUR MESSAGE. IT IS NOT YOURS BUT MINE.’

Stephen hesitated no longer. He went straight into
the dining-shanty. He strode past the bare empty
tables, under Which the long grass ancf flowers were
already grcyir^g thick and tall. He went straight up
to theend of the room, and there, standing on a form,
if the place had been filled with one or two hun-
2.L 5^3

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

dred eager listeners, although no single human be-
ing was to be seen, he^PREACHED, as he had never
yet preached in his life. The Love of God, the
‘Love that will not let us go,’ seemed to him the most
real thing in . the whole world. All his life he had
longed to find an <ahchor for his soul. Now that he
had found it, he must help others to find it too. Why
doesn’t et^eryone find it? Ah! there he began to
speak of sin ; how sin builds up a wall between our
hearts and God; how, in Jesus Christ, that wall has
been thrown down once for all, and now there is
nothing to keep us apart except our own blindness
and pride; and how if we will only turn round and
open our hearts to Him, He is longing to come in
and dwell with us.

As Stephen went on, he pleaded yet more earnest-
ly. He thought of the absent woodcutters. He felt
that he loved every single one of those wild, rough
men; and if he loved them, he, a stranger, how much
more dear must they be to their heavenly Father.
‘Grant me to win each single soul for Thee, O Lord,’
he pleaded, ‘each single soul for Thee.’ ^

Where were they all now, these men to whom he
had come to speak? Hecould not find them. ButGod
could. God’‘Was their shepherd. Even if His messen-
ger failed, the Good Shepherd woN-ld seek- on until
He found each single wandering soul that He loved.
‘And when the shepherd findeth the lost sheep, after
leaving the ninety and nine in the wilderness, how
does he bring it home? Does he wMp it? Does he
threaten it? No such thing! he carries it pn his shoul-
der and deals most tenderly with the poor, weary, wan-
dering one.’

PREACHING TO NOBODY

While he was speaking he thought of the absent
woodcutters with anevergrowjng desire to help them.
He thought of the hard lives they were forced to lead,
of the temptations they must meet with daily, and
of the lack of all outward heVp towards a better life.
As he repeated the words again, ‘Grant Aie, 0 Lord,
to win these lost shee^/ of Thine back to Thee and
to Thy service; help me to win each single soul for
Thee,’ he’ felt as if, someho^v, his voice, his prayer,
must reach tlie men he sought, even though hundreds
of miles of desolate forest lay between. Towards the
end of his sern^on, the tears ran down his cheeks.
At last, ut orly exhausted by the strength of his de-
sire he sat down once more, and, throwing his arms
on the rough board before him, he hid his face in bis
hands.

A long time passed; the silence grew ever more
intense. At last Stephen lifted bis head. He felt as
tired as if he had gone a long journey since he ontered
the wooden building. Yet it was all exactly the same
aswhen he had come in an hour before,— the rows of

empty forms and the bare tables, with grass and flow-
er-. growing up between them. Stephen’s eyes wan-
dered out through the open door. He noticed a thick
mug of earthenware lying beside the pafh outside,
evidently left behia^d by the woodcutters as not worth
taking, with them. A common earthenware mug it
was, of coarse material and ugly shape; and cracked
As Stephen’s eyes fell upon it, he felt as if he hated
that mug more than he had ever before hated any-
thing in his life. It seemed to have been left behind
therl on purpose to mock him. Here he was with
pplyan ^artlienware mug in sight, he who might have

5^5

A BOOK OF QUAKER SATNTS

been surrounded by the exquisite and delicate por-
celain that he rememljiered.in his father's factory at
Limoges. All that beauty and luxury belonged to
him by right; they might still have been his, if only
he had not listened for years to the Voice, And
now the V6ice h^d led him on this fool’s errand.
Here he was, preaching to nobody, and looking at
a cracked mug. Was his whole life a mistake? a de-
lusion? ‘Am I a fool after all?’ he asked himself
bitterly.

He was in the*^sad, bitter mood that is called ‘Re-
action.’ Strangely enough, it often seizes people just
when they have done some particularly difficult piece
of work for their Maker. Perhaps it comes to keep
them from thinking that they can finish anything in
their own strength alone.

Stephen was in the grip of this mood now. Hap-
pily he had wrestled with the same sort of temptation
many times before. He knew it of old; he knew, too,
that the best way to meet it is to face this giant Re-
action boldly, as Christian faced Apollyon, to wrestle
with it and so to overcome. He went straight out of
the door to where the mug was lying, and took cap
that mug, that cracked mug, in his hands, more rev-
erently thara if it had beefl a vase of the most precious
and fragile porcelain. He took k up, and accepted
it, this thing he hated worst of all. If life had led him
only to a cracked mug, at least he would accept that
mug and use it as best he could. Carrying it in his
hands, he walked to the little stream whose gentle
murmur came through the tall grasses f lose at hand.
There he knelt down, cleansed the mug carefuljy,
filled it with water, and putting it to his lips, he drank

PREACHING TO NOBODY

a long Threshing draught. In his pocket he found
a crust of bread. He took i% out, broke it in two
pieces, and then drank again. Only a piece of dry
bread 1 Only a drink of cold water in a cracked cup !
No meal could be simpler. Yet Stephen ate and
drank with a kind uf awe, enfolded in a sustaining,
life-giving Presence. He knew that he was not alone;
he knew that Another was with him, feeding and re-
freshing his inmost soul, as he drank of the clear, cold
water and atl the broken bread. ^

A wonderful peace a id gladiiess fell upon his
spirit as he knelt in the sunny air. The silence of the
great forest was itself a song of praise. He rode hoir e-
wards like a man in a dream. Day after day as he
journeyed, the brooding peace grew and deepened.
Even the forest pathwa>s looked different as he tra-
velled through them on his homeward way. They
had been full of trustful obedience before. They were
filled with thankfulness now. But the deepest thank-
fulness was in Stephen’s own heart.

Is that the end of the story? For many years that
wis the end, Stephen never forgot his mysterious
journey into the backwoods. He often wondered why
the Voice hadsent him there. NevertheleSs he knew,

forcertainandpa^alldoubting,thathehaddoneright

to go! Perhaps gradually the memory faded a little
and became dim. . . *

Anyway notching was further from his thoughts
than the Irjn.ly backwoods of America one afternoon,
years after, when o»oneof his journeys i" Europe his
Lsiness led him across London Bridgp. I heBndge

S17

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

was crowded with traffic. Everyone was b^ustling to
and fro, intent on his (rwn business or pleasure. Not
many people had leisure to notice one slight figure dis-
tinguished by a foreigp air of courtliness and grace,
in spite of the stiff^ severe lines of its Quaker hat and
coat. Not many people, even if they had noticed the
earnest face under the broad-brimmed hat, would have
stopped to gaze a second time upon it that busy after-
noon. Not many people. But one man did.

As Stephen ^iras hastening across *the crowded
Bridge, suddenly he felt himself seized roughly by the
shoulders, and he heard a gruff vdice exclaiming :
‘ There you are! I have found you at last, have I?^

Deep down inside Stephen Grellet, the Quaker
preacher, there still remained a few traces of the fastidi-
ous French noble, Etienne de Grellet. The traces had
been buried deep down by this time, but there they
still were. They leapt suddenly to light, that busy
afterndon on London Bridge. Neither French noble-
man nor Quaker preacher liked to be seized in such
unceremonious fashion. ‘Friend,^ he remonstrated,
drawing himself gently away, * I think that th«u art
mistaken.’

‘No, I am not,’ rejoined the other, his grip tighter
than ever. ‘When you have sought a man over the
face of the globe year after year, you don’t make a
mistake when you find him at last. Not you*! Not
me either! I’m not mistaken, and I don’t let you go
now I’ve foucd you after all these years, with your same
little dapper, black, cut-away coat,' that I thought
so queer; and your broad-brimmed h«ct«that I well
remember. Never heard a man«preach with his hat
on before!’

518

PREACHINCx TO NOBODY

‘Hast thou heard nxe preach, Friend? Why then
didst thou not speajs: to me afterwards if thou wished?’

‘But I didn’t wish ! ’answered the stranger, ‘nothing
I wished for less!’

‘Where was it?’ enquired Stephen,

‘ Why, I heard you preaching lo nobody, years and
years ago,’ the man returned. ‘At least you supposed
you were preaching to nobody. Reall}^ you were
preaching to me. Cut me to the heart you did too, I
can tell yofl.”

A dawning light of compre^iension came into
Stephen’s face as the other went on : ‘Didn’t you
preach in a deserted dining-shanty in the backwoods of '

America near ’ (and he named the place), ‘on

such a day and in such a year?’

He asked these questions in a loud voice, regard-
less of the astonished looks of the passers-by, still hold-
ing tight to the edge of Stephen’s coat with one hand,
and shaking the forefinger of the other in Stephen’s
face as he spoke, to emphasize each word.

By this time all traces of Etienne, the fastidious
Fr^ch nobleman, had utterly disappeared. Stephen
Grellet, the minister of Christ, was alive now to the
tips of his fingers. His whole soul was in his eyes as
he gazed at his questioner. Was that oTd, old riddle
going tdfind it^^nswer at last?

♦Wast thou there?’ he enquired breathlessly. ‘Im-
possible! I must have seen thee!’

‘I was there, right enough,’ answered the man.
‘Butyou did fiot seeme, because 1 took very good care
that you ghpuld not. Atfirst I thought you were a lun-
atic, preaching tq a lot of forms and tables like that,
and better left alone. Then, afterwards, I wouldn’t let

519

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

you see me, for fear you should see also that your
words had gone in deeper than I cared to show. I
was the ganger of the woodmen,' he continued, tak-
ing Stephen’s arm in his and compelling the little
Quaker to walk beside him as he talked. ‘It all hap-
pened in thisVay. « We had moved forth into the for-
est, and were putting up more shanties to live in, when
I discovered that I had left my lever at the old settle-
ment. So, after setting my men to w^ork, I came back
alone for my instrument. As I approached the old
place, I heard a voice. Trembling sfnd agitated, I
drew near, I saw you through the chinks of the timber
walls of qur dining-shanty, I listened to you ; and as I
listened, your words went through a chink in my heart
too, though its walls were thicker than those of any
dining-shanty. I was determined you should not see
me. I crept away and went back to my men. The
arrow stuck fast. I was miserable for many weeks.
I had no Bible, no book of any kind, not a creature
to ask about better things.’

‘Poor sheep! Poor lost sheep!’ Stephen murmured
gently; ‘I knew it; I knew it! The Good Shepljerd
knew it too!’

‘We were a rough lot in those days,’ continued the
other, ‘ worsethan rough, b^d; wotse than bad, wicked.
There wasn’t much about sin thafVve didn’t know
among us, didn’t enjoy too, after a fashion. That*was
why your sermon made me so miserable. Seemed to
know just all about the lot of us, you did. After it,
for weeks I went on getting more and ifi ore wretched.
There seemed nothing to do, me not bqng able to
find you, but to try and get hold of the book that had
put you up to it. N one of us had such a thing, of course.
520

PREACHING TO NOBODY

It was a Jong time before I could lay hands on one.
Me and a Bible ! How the n^n laughed ! But they
stopped laughing before 1 had done with them. I read
andread tilllfourdwhatyou had said about the Good
Shepherd and the lost sheep — ‘and God so loved the
world/ and at last — eternal Hfe. Anil then I wasn’t go-
ing to keep that to myself. It’s share and share alike
out in the backwoods, I can tell you. I tolfl my men
allaboiit it, just like you, I never let ’em alone, I gave
them no peace till they were one and all brought home
to God — every Single one ‘ I heard you asking Him:
“Every single sbul for Thy service, every single soul
for Thee, O Lord.” That was what you asked Him
for, — that, and more than that. He gave. It’s always
the way! When the Lord begins to answer. He does
answer! Every single one of those men was brought
hometoHim. But it didn’t stop there. Threeofthem
became missionaries, to go and bring others back to
the fold in their turn. I tell you the solemn truth.
Already one thousand lost sheep, if not more, have
been brought home to the Good Shepherd through
that lermon of yours, that day in the backwoods, when
y<5u thought you were

PREACHING TO NiSBODYI’

COME-TO-GOOD

'Floivers are the little faces of
Godl — {^A saying of some little
children,)

‘ To the soul that feeds on the
breddoflife the outward conven-
tions of religion are no longer
needful. HidwithChristinGod
{here is for him small place for
outward rites, for all experience
is a holy baptism,aperpetualsy,p-
per with the Lord, and aU life a
sacrifice holy a7id acceptable uitto
God,

‘ This hidden life, this inward
vismi, this immediate and inti-
mate union between the soul and
God, this, as revealed in fesus
Christ, is the basis of the Quaker
faith! — J. W. ROWNTREE.

‘ Here the pure mind is known,
and the pure God is waited up-
on for wisdom from above; afid
the peace, which hath no end, is
er{ ioyed. And the Light of God
that calls your minds oup of the
creatures, turns them to God, to
a7i endless being, joy arid peace:
here is a seeing God always pres-
ent! . , . So fare you well! , And
God Alifiighty bless, guide and
keep you all in His wisdom! — -
GEORGE FOX.

COME-TO-GOOD

more Meeting-lt^use to visit; the last
I M and thesmallestof all. A Meeting-house
with no story, except the story in its name.

Come-to-Good !'" boys and,girls from other
counties W'll exclaim perhaps, ^whoever heard of
such a place ? Why did people not calli/t “ Come-
to-Hanhl’ or “ Ne’sr-do- Wccl" wiiile they were

about it?’*

Cornish bOys and girls know better . They will
explain that Hi their far W estern corner of Eng-
land there has always been an idea, and a Vtry
good idea it is, that a name should really describe
the place to which it belongs, and should tell the
hearer something about its character. Thus it
comes to pass that on one tidal river a certain
creek, covered with salt sea-water at high tide,
but showing only an expanse of muddy flats at
low water, is called' Cockles' Peep Out! Another
creik, near by, is known as ‘Frenchman's Pill',
because some French prisoners were sent therefor
safety during the Napoleonic- Wars. Then, too, a
busysea^port vactsoneecalled ‘Penny Come Quick',
with good reason; and another out-of-the-way
place ‘Hard to Come By! whieh explains itselp.
Most 'romantic of all, the valley ^here King
Charles's armylosta battle long ago is still known
as ‘FindSnd Brave! There, the country people
say, headless gfiosts of defeated Cavaliers may

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

still be seen on moonlight nights riding up and
downy carrying their jown plumed-hatted heads
under their arms. All over the county these story
places are to be founds The more odd a Cornish
name sounds at the first hearing y the more apt it
will often provey when the reaso7i for it is under-
stood.

Thus it IS not strange that a lonely y shut-in
valley y folded away between two steep kills y should
be known as ^Come-to- Goody since y for more than
two centurieSy men and womeUy and little child-
ren also] have '‘Come to Good' in that remote and
hidden place, Therey surrounded by sheltering
trees yStands the little old Meeting-house. Its high
thatched roof projects y like a bushy eyebrow y over
the low white walls and thick white buttresses y
shading the three narrow casement windows of
pale-green glass with their diamond lattice panes.
The windows are almost hidden by the roof; the
roof is almost hiddenby the trees ; and thetree^are
almost hidden by the hills that rise above them.
T her ef ore the pilgrifn always comes upon the Meet-
ing-housewith a certain sense of''h:rpriseySO care-
fully is it concealed ; — like a most secret and
precious thought.

The bare Cornish uplands and wide moors have
a trick of hiding away these richy fertile v alley Sy
that have given rise to the proverb: ‘ Cornwall is a
ladyy whose beauty is seen in her wrinkles.' Yety
526

COME-TO-GOOD

hidden away as U is, ‘ Comedo^ Good^ has drawn
people to it for centuries. In all the country round,
for generations past, one Sunday in August has
been known as Comedo- Good Sunday* because,
on that day, the Friends assemble fromthreeorfour
distant towns to hold their meeting there. And
not the Friends only. No hell has eve^ broken
the stillness of that peaceful on lley^ yet for miles
round', on ad Meeting Sunday I the lanes are full
of small groups of people: parents and children ;
farm lads and lasses; t bought f ul-f aced men, who
admit that dhey never go anywhere else* ; shy
lovers lingering behind, or whole families walk-
ing together. All are to be seen on their way io
refresh their souls with the hour of quiet wor-
ship in the snowy white Meetinghouse under its
thatched roof.

Many years ago, little Lois {whom you tcad
about at the beginning of this book) was taken to
Comedo-Goodfor the first time on such a Sunday,
by her Grandmother, F^en now, whenever she
goes theri, she s^Ul seems to see that dear Grand-
motheds tall, erect figure, in its flowing black silk
mantle and Quaker bonnet, walking with stately
steps ^ lip the path in front; or stooping for once —
she who never stooped! — to enter the little low door.
People zuhef did not know her zvell, and even some
who did,Oi'casiQitfilly felt Loxi * dear Grandmam^

S27

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

nta^ rather a fonnidable old lady. They said she
zvas ^severe' and ^ alc^rmingly dignified^ and' she
says straight out just exactly what she thinksl
Certainly y she zvas nqt one of the spoilingy indul-
genty eiderdown-pilk-cushion kind of Grannies
that some children have now ; but Lois Icrved
her with all her heart and was never really
afraid of her. What stories she could tell! What
wonderful stockings full of treasfires 'Santa
Claus brought down her chimney on Christmas
Eve to the happy grandchild staging with her!
Lois loved to sit beside her' dear Grandmamma*
and to watch her in her comer by the fire^ upright
as everyknitting. Eveji on the long drive to Come-
to- Goody the feeling of her smoothy calm hand had
soothed the restless little fingers held in it so
firmly a7td gen tly, T he drive oz)ery Lois wondered
whatwould happen to her in the strange Meeting-
house when she might not sit by that dear Grand-
mother's side any longer ySince she, of course y 7£h?u(d
have to be up in the Ministers' gallery yWith all the
other ' Weighty Friends! Buty at Come- to- Goody
things always turn out right. Lois foundy to her
delight y that she and the other boys and girls "Were
to be allowed to creepy very quietly y up the twisty
wooden stair^^ at the far end of the Mceting-housCy
andtomaketheirwayup into the 'loft' where four
or five low forms had been specially placed for them,
Lois loved to find herself sitting there. She felt

COME-TO-GOOD

like a little white pigeon^ high up on a perck^ able
to see over the heads of all^ the people below ^ and
able even to look down on the grave faces of the
Ministers opposite. The row of broad-brimmed
hats and coal-scuttle bonnets looked- entirely dif-
ferent and much more atiractive^seen from above ^
than when she looked up at them in Meeting at
home. Tken^ when some one rose to speaks Lois
liked4o watch the ripple that passed over the luads
beneath her., ns all the faces turned towards the
speaker. Or fidten everybody., moved by the same
impulse, stood up during a prayer or sat down at
its close, it was as fascinating to watch them gently
rise and gently sit down again as it was to ivaich
the wind sweep over the sea, curling it up into
waves or wavelets, or the breeze rippling over a
broad field of blue-green June barley. Lois never
remembered the time when she was too small to en-
joy those two sights. 'Ido likewatching something
I emfit see, moving something I can I she used to
think. TowaichaMeeting,fromtheloftat Come-

to- Good, was rather like that, she f sit; though
years had to pqfs before she found out the reason

why.

Out of doors, when the quiet hour of worship
was.mer, other delights were waiti^. The small
old white Meeting-house is surrounded by a yet
older, small green burial-ground, where long
grasses,and flodbers innumerable, cover the gentle
^ 2M 5*9

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

slopes. The soft mounds cluster elosely around the
walls; as if those who^ ivere laid thereha^ wished
that their bodies might rest as near as possible to
the house of peace wh^re their spirits had rested
while on eapth, ,

Further ojf t)ie mounds are fewer; the grassy
spaces bet^veen them grow wider; till it becomes
difficult to tell which are graves and •which are
just grassy hillocks. Further stilly thaold burial-
ground dips doihn^ and loses itself entirely^ and
becomes first a wood.thenfranklydn orchard that
fills up the bottom of the valley^ through which a
clear brown stream goes wdjidering,

Yety midivay on the hilly slope above^ half
hidden gravestones can still he discernedy among
the grass and flowers ; shining through themy
like a smile that was once a sorrow, Smally greyy
perfectly plain stones they arCy all exactly alike yas
is the custom in Friends' graveyardSy where to
be allowed a headstone at ally waSy at one timCy
C 07 isidered rather gay' ! Each stone bears no-
thing but q name ttpon et and sometimes a date,
* Honor Magor' is the name cafv^d on «ne of the
oldest stooping stones y and under it a date marly
\oo years old. That is all, Lois used to wonder
who Honor^ Magor waSy — an old woman? a
young one? or possibly even a little girl? Where
did she live when she was alive? ho'So dia she
come to be buried there? But tHere arena answers

530

COME-TO-GOOD

to any of these questions ; and there is no need to
know*more than that tiu tired body of Honor
Magor has been resting peacefully for nearly a
century ^hidden under the tangle of waving grasses
and ejer-cha7iging flowers at^ Coim-to-Good.

Ever - changing fowers? * Yes; because the
changing oj the seasons is more inarke4 there than
at othei' places. For Com: -to Good lies so many
miles from any town, the tide of life has ebbed
away so far from this q'liet pool, that, for a long
time pasty Meetings have only been held here four
tunes in the year. Summer, Autumn, Winter,
and Spi'ing, — each season brings itsozvn Sunday.
Then, and for a week or two beforehand, the top-
most bar of every zvooden gate in the neighbour-
hood bears aniodest piece of zv kite paper announc-
ing that ^ a Friends^ Mretingwillbeheldat Come-
to- Good on the following First Day morning, at
eleven d clock, when the company of any who are
inclined to attend will be acceptablel

A ugust Sunday brings deep, red roses tossing
themselves up, like a mim^ion foun0,in, against
the grey thatckM roof. November Sunday has its
own treasures: sweet, late blackberries, crimson
and golden leaves, perhaps even a fezv late hazel
nuts and acorns still hiding dowti!^ in the wood.
In February, the first gummy stars of the celan-
dine an fo be seen peeping out from under the
hedge, while a Hemure little procession df white

2 M 2 531

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

and green snow drops walks primly up the narrow
path to Meeting, T he ^Fair Maids of February *
seem to have an especial love for this quiet spot.
But in May — ah!^ May is the best Sunday
of all. In May, not only is the whole valley knee-
deep in grass andferns and flowers and bluebells,
T here is sc^nething still better ! In May the bu rial-
ground is all singing and tinkling silently with
fairy spires of columbines. Garden flowers inmost
other places, they are quite wild here. Purple and
deep-blue and pale-pink columbine^ are growing
up everywhere, each flower with its own little
pairs of twin turtle-doves hidden aivay inside.
Even white columbine, rarest of all, has been found
in that magic valley, I am afraid Lois thought
longingly, all through the silence on a May Sunday,
of the nosegay of columbines she meant to gather
afterwards. Directly Meeting zvas over, the chil-
dren pelted down very fast from the loft. Num-
bers of little feet flew across the sunlit grass, while
the elder Friends were walking sedately down
the path to 4he gate,*

*0 Columbine, open your folded wrapper.
Where two twin turtle-doves dwells

chanted the children as they frolicked about^ for-
getting that they had been stiff withsitting so long
in Meeting, as they gathered handfttls*of their
treasures,

532

COxME-TO-GOOD

Alljoo ^oon they would hear the call: * ComCy
children I it ic time to be agoing! And then they
would scamper hack^ their hands full of their
dear dove flowers. No w&nder they felt that in
having this sunny spot they zbere leaving one of
the happiest places on earth. If only they coula
stay there 1 If only some one could be fkjoying it
always ! What a pily that on the forty-eight '‘other
Sundays oj" the year it should all be deserted, shut
up and forsaken ! There might be tiimbers of
other wonderful flozvers that nobody ever saw.
There the old Meeting-house stays all by itself the
zvhole year round, exupt on those four Sundays.,
even as a lonely pool of clear zva^er remains high
up on the rocks, showing that the great sea itself
did come there once, long ago, flowing in mightily
fdling up all the hare chinks and crannies.

Will such a high tide ever come back again to
Come-to-Cond? Is that tide perhaps beginning
^ow in, noiselessly and steadily, even now?

Some things look rather as if it might he; for
nezv Friends' M feting-fiouscs are being built in
crowded cities lo-day, zvhcrc even the high tide of
long ago never came. But then, in lonely country
places like Come-to-Good, scattered up and down
all over EngUnd,therc are many oj^thesedesertea
Meeting-houses, where hardly anybody comes no w
or only comeg out 4 )f curiosity. Yet the high tide
didfill them all once long ago, full ip overflowing,

533

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

when people met within their walls coi^stantly^
seeking and finding God.

The stories in this book about our ‘ Quaker
Saints' show at ^hat a cost these deserted places
were won for us by our brave forefathers. They^
with their health and their lives gladly given in
those terrible prisons of long ago^ gamed for us
our liberty to me£t together Hn numbers five or
more^ to practise a form of worship not author-
ised by laif ; that is to say^ without any prayer-
book or set form of service being used.

Is our simple Quaker way of worship really
worth the price they paid for it? Or is it merely
a quaint and interesting relic of a by -gone age^
something like the ^Friend's bonneT that Lois'
Grandmother wore as a matter of course^ which
now is never used^ but lies in a drawer^ carefully
covered with tissue paper and fragrant with
lavender?

Is our Quaker faith like that? hit something
antiquated and interesting^ but of no real use
to us or to anybody to-day? Or did these' Quaker
Saints' of whom we have heard^ did they^ and
many other brave men and women^ whose^stories
are not widtien here^ really and truly make a big
discovery? Did they^ by their living qnd by their
dyings remind the world of a truth that it had
been in danger of forgetting? a truth that may
^34

COME-TO-GOOD

still be in danger of being forgotten if quite or-
dinary^^ everyday people are not faithful now in
their turn ?

Is it really and truly txuCy that where two or
three humble human souls are^gatkeyed together
in His Name^ in the simplest possible fashion^
without any pries t^or altar^or visible signs to help
theni^ yet our Lord is there? .Can He he indeed
among them still to-day ? and zvill He be for ever ^
as He promised? feeding them Himself with the
true Bread of Life^ satisfying iheir thirst with
Living Watef , baptizing their souls witJ'Spower
and with Peace ? —

Children dear., you must answer these ques-
tions for yourselves^ fearlessly and honestly. No
one else can answer them for you. The answers
may seem long in coming fut do not be in a hurry.
They will come inthneff you seek steadfastly and
humbly. Only re7nember one thing., as you think
ovPr these questions. Even if this is our way, the
right way for us, this very simple Quaker way
that our forefathers tvon for us at suck a cost, still
that do^ not necessarily make it the right way for
all tther people too. God's world a7id God's plans
are much bigger than that. He brings His chil-
dren home by^ nmnbers of different paths, but for
each child of His, God's straight way for that child
is the very best.

The wise^old Persians had a proverb, 'The

535

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

zvafs unto God are as the number of the souls of
the children of menl Let us remember thiSy if we
ever want to try to force other people to think
about things exactly^ as we do. Let us re-
member y toOy, that xi'valry and pride^ that sayings
or even thinking, ^My way is the only right way,
and a mueh better way than your way I is the only
really^ antiquated kind of worship. The sooner
we all learn to lay that aside, not in la'^ender and
tissue paper, but to cast it away utt&lyand forget
that it ever existed, — the better. *

It Js not a bit of an excuse for us when we are
inclined to judge other people critically , to read in
these stories that some of the early Friends did and
said harsh and intolerant things. They lived in
a much harsher, more intolerant age than ours.
The seventeenth century, as we know, has been
called^ a dreadfully ill-mannered century I Let us
do our very best not to give any one an excuse for
saying the same of this twentieth century inwMch
we live. T hus, i 7i reading of these Quaker Saints,
let us try to copy, not lheir*harshness or their intol-
erance, but their unflinching courage, their firm
steadfastness, their burning hope for every nmn ;
above all, their unconquerable love.

Remembet^ the old lesson of the daisies. Each
flower must open itself as wide as ever it can, in
order to receive all that the Sun wanls lo give to
it. But, while each daisy receives its own ray of
536

COME-TO-GGOD

sunshine thanJ^fiilly and gludly^ it must rejoice
that Hher very different rays, at very different
angles, can reachotherfloibers. Yet the Sun Heart
from which they all come is One and the Same,
All the differentways of worship are One too, when
they meet in the Centre,

Theiffore it is not strange that at little se-
cluded Corne-tO’GoodyWhcre the blue doves of the
columbir^s keep watch over the quiet graves, I
should remember a message *that came to me in
another, veiy different, H ouse of God — a magnifi-
cent Cathedral par away in South Italy^ There,
high up, above the lights and pictures and flotvers
and ornaments of the altar, half hidden at times
by the clouds of ascending inanse, I caught the
shming of great golden letters. Gradually, as I
watched, they formed themselves into these three
words of old Latin:

DEUS ABSCONDITUS HEIC,

%nd the golden message meant:

‘ GOD IS HIDDEN HERE.'

• •

Thatss the secret all tluse different ways of wor-
ship are meant to teach us, if we will oidy learn.
Let us not judge one another, not ever dream of
judging one another any more. Only, wherever
our own way of worship leads us, let us seek to
follov>ii diligently, dutifully, humbly, and to the
end. Then, ^ot only when we are worshipping

53J

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

wiihour brothers and sisters around us^ in churchy
chapel, great cathedral, or quiet meeting-house,
hut also (perhaps nearest 'and closest of alt) in the
silence of our own hearts, we shall surely find in
truth and with thankfulness that

GOD IS HIDDEN HERE.

HISTORICAL NOTES

HISTORICAL NOTES

N0TK3 — The References throughout are to the Cambridge
Edition of George Fox's Journal, ^^cept where otherwise stated.
The spelling has been modernised and the extracts occasionally
abridged.

‘STIFF AS A TREE, PURE A BELL.’

Historical ; described as Hosely as possible frcfm George Fox’s
ov, n words in his Journal, vol. ii. pp. 04, 100-104.

‘PURE FOY, MA JOYE.

Historical. See George Fox's Journal /Ellwocd Edition), pp.
1-17. See also Sewel’s ‘ Historyof the Quakers, 'and ' Beginnings
of Quaker isnit' by W. C. Liaithwaite. See ‘George Fox,’ by
Thomas Hodgkin (Leaders of keligioa Series), for descrip-
tion of Fenny Drayton village, manor house, church, and
neighbouihood. *

See also W. Penn’s Prf^face to George Fox’s Journal .(Ellwood
Edition), pp. x.av and xxv, for details of pyarentage, childhood,
and youth.

‘THE ANGEL OF BEVERLEY.’

This is a purely imaginary story, written for a ten-year-old
listener who begged for ‘more of a story about him when he was
young. ’ The conneccion of a mem bar of tlie Purefoy family with
the ' Great Lady of Beverley ’ has no foundation in fact. On
visiting Fenny Drayton, since writing the story, I find^ however,
that there were a brother and al:.;er Edward and Joyce Purefoy,
who lived a few years earlier than the date of this tale. They may
still be seen in marble on a tomb in the North Aisle with their
father, the Colonel Purefoy of that day, who does wear a ruff as
described in the story. It is not impossible that the Colonel Pure-
f^oif George F jx’s Journal mayalso have had a son and (laughter
(T the same names as described in my account, but I have no
warrant for supposing this, and am anxious that this imaginary
tale should not be supposed to posses:f the samej:ind of authen-
ticity as most of the other stories. Priest Stephens’ remark about
George Foflt, and tfee scenes in Beverley Minster and at Justice
Hotham’s house, are, however, historical.

‘TAMING THE TIGER.’

Histdrical. See George Fox’s Journal (Ellwood Edition), pp.
27, 28, 31-48, 33^, for the different incidents#

'THE MAN IN LEATHER BREECHES.’

Expand&i with imaginary incidents and consequences, from
a few paragraphs in Seorge Fox’s Journal, i. 20.

541

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

‘THE SHEPHERD OF PENDLE HILL.’

Expanded from George Fox’s Journal, i. 40. ^

N. B. — The Shepherd, who is the speaker, is a wholly imagin-
ary person.

‘THE PEOPLE IN WHITE RAIMENT’ and ‘A WON-
DERFUL FORTNIGHT.’ •

Historical. T^ken frqm various sources, chiefly George Fox’s
Journal, vol. i. pp. 40-^, and two unpublished papers by Ernest
E. Taylor, describing the lives and homes of the Westmorland
Seekers: ‘A Great People to be Gathered ' and ‘ Faithful Servants
of God.’ Se^also his ‘ Cameos from the Life of George Fox,’
Sewel’s ' History of the Quakers, 'and ‘ Beginnings of Quakerism,’
by W. C. Braithwaite.

• UNDER THE YEW-TREES.’

Expanded from George Fox’s Journal, i. 47, 48, 52. The
conversation among the girls is of course imaginary, but many
details are taken from ‘ Margaret Fox of Swarthmoor Hall,’ by
Helen G..Crosfield, a most helpful book that has been constantly
used in all these stories about Swarthmoor.

BEWITCHED!’

Historical. See Sewel’s History, i. 106. George Fox’s Journal,
i. 51. ‘Testimony of Margaret Fox’ (Ellwood Edition of above,
p. xliv). ‘Margaret Fox of Swarthmoor Hall,’ p. 15. Also
‘Englandunder the Stuarts,’ by G.M. Trevelyan (for Witchcraft).

‘THE JUDGE’S RETURN.’

Historical. See ‘ Testimony of Margaret Fox* (Ellwood Edi-
tion of G. Fox’s Journal), p. xlv. Sewel’s History, i. 106.

‘STRIKE AGAIN!’

Historical. See George Fox’s Journal, i. 57-59. Seed’s
History, i. 111-112. m

‘MAGNANIMITY.’

Historical. •See George Font’s Journal, i. 59-61. Sewel’s
History, i. 113-114.

‘MILES HALHEAD AND THE HAUGHTY LADY.’

Historical. See Sewel’s History, i. 129-131, and GSorge
Fox’s Journal, i. 53, 56, for George Fox’s sermon.

•SCATTERING^THE SEED.’

Historical. Details taken from George Fox^ Journal, i. 141,
209, 347; 292, 297; II, 337. See also Chapter viii. ‘The
Mission to the South,’ in ‘Beginnings of Quakeriiitn^’ by W. C.
Braithwaite. Also ‘First Publishers of Truth,’ for accounts of
the work in the different counties mentioi^d.

542

HISTORICAL NOTES

‘ WRESTLING FOR GOD.

Historical. See ‘Beginnings of Quakerism,’ Chapter viii.
Also ‘ Letters from the Early FriAtis,’ by A. R. Barclay. ‘ Piety
Promoted ’ i. 35-38. ‘Story of Quakerism,’ by E. B. Emmott,
for description of old London. S£3 also ‘Memorials of the
Righteous Revived,’ by C. Marshall and Thomas Camm, and
note that T have followed T. Camm’s account in this book of his
father’s journey south wi^h E. BurrougK W. C. Braithwaite in
‘ Beginnings of Quakerism, ’ following ' First Publishers of Truth, ’
thinks it, however, more probable that F. Howgill was E. Bur-
rough’s companion throughout the journey, andithat the two
Friends reached London together.

‘ LITTLE jmES AN D HiS JOURNEYS ’ and ‘THE FIRST
QUAKER MAI^'YR.' •

Mainly histortcal. Details taken largely from ‘Life of
James Parnell,’ by C. Fell Srnitli, See also ‘James, Parnell,’
by Tiiomas i.udgkin, in ‘The Trial of our Faith.’ Alro
‘ Beginnings of Quakerism,' Chapter ix., and Sewel’s’ History,
'rhe discourse of the two Baptists on Carlisle Bridge and James’s
association with them is imaginary, but they are themselves his-
torical characters, and the incidents they describe are narrated
in George Fox’s Journal, i. 114, 115, i24-’26; 153, 186. For
‘ The First Quaker Martyr,’ see ‘ The Lamb’s Defence against
Lyes, a true Testimony concerning the sufferings and death of
James Parnell. 1656, '

‘ THE CHILDREN OF READING MEETING.'

See Emmott’s ‘Story of Quakerism,’ p. 83. Also ‘Letters of
the Early Friends,’ A very graphic but fictitious account of this
incident is given in ‘The Children’s Meeting,’ by M. E. England,
l yi w out of pr>nt. See also ‘Lessons from Early Quakerism in
Reading, ’ by W. Braithwaite. My account is founded on
history, but I Lave described imaginary children. The list of
scents used on Sir Wilham Armorer ’5 wig is furrowed from a
genuine one of a slightly later period.

• •

‘ TfiE SADDEST STORY OF ALL.’

Historical. See Sewel’s History. 1. 80, 255-293, 382-397.
408, 438. Also ‘Beginnings of Quakerism,’ Chapter xi.
‘Nayler’s Fall.’ Also James Nayler’s collected Books and
Papers, published in 1716.

‘ PALE WJI^DFLOWERS.’

See account of Dewsbury in ‘ Beginnings of Quakerism. ’ Also
‘ The faithful Testimony of that Antient Servant of the Lord, and
Minister of the Everlasting Gospel, Willian* Dewsbury.’ Also

5^3

A BOOK OF QUAKER SAINTS

‘ Testimony to Mary Samm,’ p. 348, same'volume. The details
given are as far as possible historical, but the setting, •the walk,
and the windflowers are imag/aary. The prison scene is as far as
possible historical. The Testimony to little Mary tells the sequel
to her * happy evening,’ and a few paragraphs from it are given
here.

TESTIMONY TO MARY SAMM, 1680,

The first day of the second month, 1680, it pleased the Lord to
afflict her witjj a violent fever, that brought her very low in a little
time, and great was her exercise of spirit, as to hef condition
and st^te with God, many times weeping when she was alone.

. . . She said, ‘If this distemper do not abate, Lmust 4 ie, but
my soul shall go to Eternal Joy, Eternal, Eternal and Everlast-
ing Life and Peace witli my God for ever : Olt ! praises, praises
to Thy Majesty, Oh, my God ! who helpeth j^e to go through
with patience, what I am to endure.' Then after some time
she said, Friends, we must all go hence one after another, and
they that live the longest know and endure the greatest sorrow:
therefore, O Lord, if it be Thy will, take me to I'hyself, that my
soul may rest in peace with Thee, and not any one to see me
here any more. Oh ! praises, praises be unto Thy holy Name for
ever in Thy will being done with me, to take me to Thyself, where
I shall be in heavenly joy, yea, in heavenly joy for ever and for
evermore.’ . . .

And many times would she be praying to the Lord day and
night, ‘ O^Lord, lay no more upon me, than Thou givest me
strength to bear, and go through with patience, that Thy will
may be done, that Thy will may be done’ (many times together).

‘ Oh ! help me, help me, O my God ! that I may praise Thy holy
Name for ever. ’

And so continued, very often praising the Name of the I^ord
with joyful sounds, and singing high praises to His holy Nanif
for ever and for evermore ; she being much spent with lifting up
her voice in high praises to God, through fervency of spirit, and
her body being, weak, her'Grandfather went into the room, and
desired her to be as still as possibly she could, and keep her
mind inward, and stayed upon the Lord, a»d see if*she could
have a little rest and sleep : she answered, 'Dear Grandfather,

I shall die, and I cannot but praise the Name of the Lord whilst
I have a being ; I do not know what to do to praise His Name
enough whilst I live ; but whilst there is life there is hope ; but
I do believe it is Ijetter for me to die than live. ’

And so continued speaking of the goodncss*of the Lord from
day to day ; which caused many tears to fall from the eyes of
them that heard her. Her Grandfather coming to iie», asked her
how she did? She said to him and tocher Mother, ‘I have
had no rest this night nor to-day ; I did not know but 1 should
have died this nighj, but very hardly I tugged through it ; but

5/4

HISTO*RICAL. NOTES

I shall die to-day, and a grave shaU be nuade, and my body put
into a hole, and my soul shall go to heavenly joy, yea, heavenly
joy and everlasting peace for evermore.’

Then she said, ‘Dear Grandfathir, 1 do believe thou wilt not
stay long behind me, when I am gone,’

He answered, ‘Dec-.r Granddaughter, I shall come as fast as
rhe Lord orders my way. ’ •

Then she praised the Name of the Lord w^th high praises
and joyful sounds for a ser»sv)n, and then^esTcfl her Mother to
let ner be taKeii up a little tim'^ ; saying, ‘ It may be it will give
me sorhe ease.’ Then they sent for her Grandfather, who said
to her, ‘If this be thy last day, and thereon thou%rt to die, it
is no I. safe for thee to be taken forth of thy bed : dear Mary,
thou shalt have all attendance that is ednvenient, as to set thee
up in tby bed,^nd to Iry thev: down again; but. “to take thee
up ’ we are not willing to do it.' •

She answered, • Well, Grandfather, what thou seest best for
me, I am willing So have it .so.’

Then her Mothei and Aunt set .her up in her bed ;.she said
It did refresh hei - md give her some ease : and as they were order
ing what was to he done about her bed, she said, ‘Oh ! what a
gi'c.at deal of do is here in ordering the bed lor one that is upon
their death-bed.'

Her Aunt, Joan Dewsbury, said, 'Mary, dost thou think thou
art upon thy deach-bed>’

She answered, ‘Yea, yea, I am upon my death-bed, I shall
die to-day, and I am very willing to die, because I know it is
better for me to die than live.’

Her Aunt replied, ‘I do believe it is belter for tkee to die
than live.’

She said, ‘Yea, it is well for me to die.’ . , .

‘And, dear Mother, I would have thee remember ray love to
my dear sisters, relations, and friends ; and now I have nothing
to d#. 1 have nothing to do.’

mA friend answered, ‘Nothing, Mary, but to die.’

Then she said to her Mother, ‘I desire thee to give me a little
clear posset drink, then I will see if I ^an have a little rest and
sleep before I die. ’ • •

When the posset drink came to her, she took a little. . . . Then
she said to her Mofher, ‘I have a swelling behind my ear, but
I wo^ld not have anything done to it, nor to my sore throat nor
mouth, for all will be well enough when I am m my grave.'

Then she asked what time of day it was ? it being the latter
part of fhe day, her Grandfather said, ‘The chimes are going
four; ’’She said, ‘I thoughi it had been mor#; I will see if I
can have a little rest and sleep before I die. ’

And so she lay still, and had a sweet rest and sleep ; and
then she awfiklid without any complaint, and in a quiet peace-
able frame of spirit lai^ down her head in peace, when the clock
struck the fifth hour cf the 9th day of the and month,* 1680.

545

A BOOK OF QUAltER SAINTS

We whose names are under- written were eye and ear witnesses
of what is before expressed, as near as could betaken, and does
not much vary from what she declared, as the substafice (though
much more sweet and comtDHable expressions passed from her,
but for brevity sake are willing this only to publish) who stfood
by her when she drew her last breath.

William Dewsbury, her Grandfather.

M&ry Saj;)im, her Mother.

Joan Dewsbury, her Aunt.

Hannah Whitthead, a Friend.

‘AN UNDISTURBED MEETING. ^

I first heard this story graphically told by Ernest E.Tay lor. His
intimate knowledge of the neighbourhood, and ifiinute Historical
researches into the livts of the Early Friends igi this district, made
the whole scene vivid to his listener. In writing down my own
account from memory, some months later, 1 find I have unin-
tentionally altered some of the details, and have in particular
allowed too long a time for the soldiers' carouse, and have sub-
stituted a troop of horse for militia. For these lapses from strict
historical accuracy I alone am responsible ; but it has seemed
better to leave the story as it was written and to append the fol-
lowing note from the ancient MS. account of the sufferings at
Sedbergh, to show exactly what did occur:

‘ 1665. Friends being met at John Blaykling’s at Draw-well,
Lawrence Hodgson of Dent, an Ensign to the Militia, came into
the meeting with other Militia men, cursing and swearing that if
Friends would not depart and disperse, he would kill them and
slay and what not. Then as Friends did not disperse they pulled
them out of doors and so broke up the meeting. The Ensign
thereupon went off, expecting Friends to have followed him, but
they sat down and stood together at the house end [? and] on the
hill -side. So the Ensign came back and with his drawn ^‘word
struck at several Friends and cut some in the hat and some*in
the clothes, and so forced and drove them to Sedbergh town,
where after some chief men of ^he parish had been spoken with.
Friends were let go home in peace. ’ — Sedbergh MSS. Sufferings.

It was of course the gathering togethej ‘in numbers more
than five’ and ‘refusing to di.sperse’ that was at this time illegal
and made the Friends liable to severe punishment, There*Ss still
a tradition in the neighbourhood that the Quakers were to be
taken not to Inginire Hall, but to the house of another Justice
at Thorns.

‘BUTTERFLIES IN THE FELLS,’

See ‘Bygone Northumberland,’ by W. Andre#s.* ‘Piety Pro-
moted, ’i. 88-90. W. C. Braithwaite's ‘Beginnings of Quakerism,’
p. 373. '^‘The Society of Friends in Newcastle,’ by J. W. Steel.

546

hist6rical notes

^THE VICTORY OF AMOR STODDART.'

See ®eorge Fox's Journal, i. 185, 190, 261, 431 ; ii. 167,
Scwel’s History, i. 29. ‘Beginji|pgs of Quakerism,’ p. 365.

^THE marvellous VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP
-WOODHOUSE.’"

Taken from Robert Fowler's own accounts ‘A truo Relation
of the Voyage \indertaken by me Robl^t Fowler with my small
vessel called che “ Woodh .use” but pcrtormed by the Lord like
as he did Noah’s ark, wherein he shut up a few righteous persons
and landed them safe, even at tne Hill Ararat,’ imblished in the
‘ History of the Society of Friends ir America. ’

The scene.s on Bridlington Quay ’and in London^ are not
strictly histoi^cal, but ma]- be inferred from the above account.

‘RICHARD SHLLAR ANL THE “kERCIFUL MAN.”'

Taken from Richard Sellar’s owa narrative : An account of
the sufferirj -/.i of Ricaard Seller of Keinsey, a Fisherman who,
was pre.st in Scarborough Piers, in the time of the two last
engagements between the Dutch and Eriglish, in the year 1665,’
published in Besse’s ‘Suferings of the Quakers,’ vol. ii. pp.
112-120.

‘TWO ROBBER STORIES— WEST AND EAST.’

(1) Leonard Fell and the Highwayman, taken from ‘The
Fells of Swarthmoor Hall,' by M. Webb, p. 353.

(2) On the Road to Jerusalem. Taken from George Robin-
son s own account, published in 'A Brief History of* the Voyage
of Katharine Evans and Sarah Cheevers,’ pp. 207 ad fin.

‘SILVER SLIPPERS.’

^Mainly nistoric il. See Sewel's History, i. 294, 473 ; ii. 343,
3 ee also ‘History of the Quakers,' by G. Croese, for some ad-
ditional particulars. The best account of Mary Fisher and her
adventurous journey is given in ‘(Quaker Women,’ by Mabel
R. Brailsford, Chapters v, andwi., entitled 'Mary Fisher’ and ‘An
Ambassador to the Grand Turk. ’ I am indebted to Miss Brails-
ford for {?ermissicm to draw freely from her most interesting nar-
rative, and ilso to quote from her extracts from Paul Rycaut’s
History.

The only historical foundation for the ' Silver Slippers ’ is the
staten>ent by one historian that before Mary Fisher’s interview
with the Sultan she was allowed twenty- four hours to rest and to
‘arrange her dress.’ H, M. Wallis has kindly supplied me
with some local colouring and information about Adrianople.

‘FIERCE* FEATHERS. ’ *

A historical incident, with some imaginary actorA The out-

547 *

A BOOK OF QOAKJER SAINTS

lilies of this story are given in * Historical,Anecdotes ' by Pike.
Several additional particulars and the copy of a painting of
the Indians at Meeting are to be found in the^ Friends’
Reference Library at Devol^ire House. For some helpful
notes about the locality I am indebted to H. P. Morris of
Philadelphia, U.S.A.

‘THE THIEF IN THE TANYARD. ’

Historical. The facis and the words of the speakers are taken
sdmost verbatim from Pike's ‘ Historical Anecdotes. ’ I have only
supplied the setting for the story.

‘HOW A FRENCH NOBLE BECAME A FRIEND.’

Entirely historical. All the facts are taken from the Autobio-
graphy of Stephen Grellet.

‘PREACHING TO NOBODY.’

This story is not to be found in Stephen 6rellet’s Autobio-
graphy. It appeared in ‘The American Friend,’ November
1895, and is now included in the penny 'Life of Stephen Grellet ’
in the Friends Ancient and Modern Series. The actual words
of Stephen Grellet's sermon have not been recorded. Those in
the text are expanded from a sentence in another discourse of
his, given here in quotation marks. The incident of the cracked
mug is not historical.

THE END

Printed in Great Britain hy R. & R. Clark, T.imited, Edinbi^rgfu

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